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'Tree Man' Undergoes Major Transformation, Expected to Return Home

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

The Indonesian man dubbed "Tree Man" is expected to return home to his remote village at the end of this month after undergoing extensive surgeries, ABC News reported.

Dede Koswara, 37, has been covered with bark-like warts for more than 20 years. The growths are believed to be caused by the human papillomavirus and began to appear on his skin after he cut his leg when he was 15.

Within a decade, the warts had grown so large that he had to quit his job as a fisherman and joined a freak show to support himself.

Koswara finally received the medical attention he needed after his story made international headlines. In the past nine months, surgeons at a hospital in Bandung, Indonesia, have performed eight operations on him to remove massive amounts of dead skin tissue, it was reported.

"The surgery of Dede is not perfect, but the results meet what we hoped or expected," Dr. Hardisiswo Soedjana, the head plastic surgeon in the case, told ABC News.

Koswara, a father of two, is not out of the woods yet. He will return to the hospital for two more major surgeries in the coming months, according to the report.

Click here to see photos and read more on this story from ABC News.

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