It all started after he bumped his head.
A 74-year-old Indian man just had a 4-inch “devil horn” removed from the top of his skull. Doctors who operated on the man at Bhagyoday Tirth Hospital in the Sagar district of Madhya Predesh, India, say he is now healed from surgery.
According to Dr. Vishal Gajbhiye, the elderly man, Shyam Lal Yadav, a farmer from Rahli village in Madhya Pradesh, bruised his head in 2014 — then noticed a lump.
“Initially, he ignored it as it did not cause any discomfort,” Gajbhiye tells SWNS. 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.”
Yadav had developed what experts calls a sebaceous or cutaneous horn, a type of tumor that is often not harmful, though there is “malignant potential,” according to the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology.
“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.”
Researchers believe that radiation and sunlight may trigger the condition, as the tumors typically appear on parts of the body exposed to the sun.
“Devil’s horns” can appear on the face, ears, hands, toes and — in rare unfortunate cases — the penis.