Doctors remove four-inch 'devil horn' from villager's head

Doctors have successfully operated on a 74-year-old man had a four-inch ‘devil horn’ which started to grow after he bumped his head in 2014.

The successful operation was conducted at Bhagyoday Tirth Hospital in the Sagar district of in India’s Madhya Predesh state where the surgeons removed ‘devil horn’ from the top of his skull.

Dr Vishal Gajbhiye said that the elderly man, Shyam Lal Yadav, is a farmer from Rahli village who bruised his head in 2014 and later noticed a lump.

The physician told a British news agency SWNS, “Initially, he ignored it as it did not cause any discomfort. At first, he had the “growth cut by the local barber — but when the lump hardened and started growing further, he approached the hospital at Sagar.”

“As the horn is composed of keratin, the same material found in fingernails, the horn can usually be removed with a sterile razor,” Gajbhiye says.

After surgery, patients with a “devil’s horn” may also be treated with radiation or chemotherapy, and skin will be grafted to cover the wound that was once the horn’s base, says Gajbhiye, adding that Yadav is “now healed completely.”

Yadav had developed what experts call a sebaceous or cutaneous horn, a type of tumour that is often not harmful, though there is “malignant potential,” according to the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology.

Researchers believe that radiation and sunlight may trigger the condition, as the tumours typically appear on parts of the body exposed to the sun.

“Devil’s horns” can appear on the face, ears, hands, toes and other organs of the body.