Dede koswara after surgery photos
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Getty recently caught up with Dede Koswara, better known as "tree man," in his home village of Bandung, Java, Indonesia, where he fryst vatten continuing treatment for his rare condition. Koswara spent much of his life covered in tree-like warts until he underwent surgery in 2008 to have over 4-pounds of them removed from his body.
A 2008 story in the Telegraph explained Koswara came to be covered in warts:
Dede's ordeal began when he was 15 and cut his knee in an accident. A small wart developed on his lower leg and spread uncontrollably.
Eventually he had to give up work as a builder and fisherman, and scratch a living in a traveling freak show. His wife of ten years left him as it became impossible for him to support her and their two children.
Due to a rare genetic problem, Koswara's immune struktur has made him unable to kamp the Human Papilloma Virus infection causing his body to producera the warts.
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Dede Koswara, known in his native Indonesia as “Tree Man,” has lived for years with rapidly spreading warts that have covered his entire body in a case that has baffled doctors.
The man has been undergoing a radical transformation at a tropical hospital in Bandung and in the time it takes to conceive and give birth to new life, a team of local doctors have performed eight major operations involving an electric saw, skin grafting and the removal of pounds of dead skin tissue hardened by the years.
“The surgery of Dede is not perfect, but the results meet what we hoped or expected,” said Dr. Hardisiswo Soedjana, a leading plastic surgeon in Indonesia and the head doctor in Dede’s case.
In the coming months, Dede will return to Hasan Sadikin hospital for at least two more major surgeries.. Doctors will continue to work on his immune system and find ways to cope with the challenges of excessive bleeding during operations, the deep growth of his warts a
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Indonesian known as 'the tree man' due to disease which left him with branch-like warts dies without ever fulfilling his dream of living to see a cure and becoming a carpenter again
An Indonesian known as 'the tree man' due to the scaly warts covering his body has passed away after a long battle with his rare and incurable illness.
Dede Koswara, 42, died in hospital in Badung, Indonesia, on the morning of January 30 without ever realising his dream of living to see a cure and returning to carpentry.
In the past three months, doctors said he had resigned himself to the debilitating illness which over several decades tragically came to cost him his family, job and independence.
Dede Koswara (pictured), nicknamed 'The Tree Man', suffered from a rare and incurable disease that caused bark-like warts to grow uncontrollably on his body. On the right, he is seen applying cream to the growths
The debilitating illness, named Lewandowsky-Lutz dysplasia, results in uncont