Strange Medical Conditions You Won’t Believe Are Real

Epidermodysplasia Verruciformis: Tree Man Syndrome

Epidermodysplasia verruciformis (EV) - also known as the tree man syndrome - is a rare, hereditary disease causing tumor growth on the patient's skin that resembles the bark from a tree. EV can occur during any time of the patient’s life, but it generally occurs in children between the ages of five and eleven. The symptoms of EV include flat or bumpy lesions, small bumps known as papules, patches of inflamed skin, and brown lesions resembling tree roots or tree bark. Approximately six-hundred cases of EV have been reported since the disease was first identified in 1922. Two-thirds of patients with EV are diagnosed with skin cancer between the ages of twenty and thirty.

Keep reading to learn all about fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva, or stone man syndrome.