Sultan Kosen of Turkey is the worlds tallest man. He is one of only eleven people in history to reach a height of over 8 feet, and up until recently, he was still growing.
Sultan suffers from acromegaly, a condition caused by a tumor in the pituitary gland. This tumor causes and excess of growth hormone to be produced in the brain, and if it starts while a patient is still growing in puberty, the condition can cause gigantism.
At the University of Virginia Medical Center, Sultan was receiving treatments with a new drug designed to control the production of growth hormone. He then underwent a new non-evasive radiation therapy called Gamma Knife radiosurgery in August 2010.
World’s tallest man Sultan Kosen with his UVA medical team in 2010 twitter.com/uvahealthnews/…
— UVA Health System (@uvahealthnews) March 13, 2012
Due to the groundbreaking new surgery Sultan’s doctors in Turkey have told him that he has finally stopped growing
Dr Jason Sheehan, neurogurgeon at the University of Virginia Medical Center, and one of the doctors responsible for Sultan’s therapy told the New York Post, “I’m most pleased that we were able to help Sultan. If he had continued to grow, it would have been life-threatening.”
#Health World’s tallest man Sultan Kosen stops growing: Sultan Kosen of Turkey, the world’s tallest man, s… http://t.co/YK1cJ4IE #News
I enjoy being 6’6″ tall, but 8’3″ tall?! Sultan Knosen looks like he has to do a lot of bending and ducking. http://t.co/KskuwlG2