China to Rein in Cosmetic Leg-Stretching Operations

Beijing- China's health ministry on Tuesday said it will curb unlicensed cosmetic surgery designed to lengthen the lower legs and increase height, after a growing number of patients became disabled or disfigured by the surgery. "Leg-lengthening surgery must only be carried out for strict medical reasons and performed in authorized hospitals," state media quoted ministry spokesman Mao Qun'an as saying.

"Leg-lengthening surgery is a clinical orthopedic treatment, not cosmetic surgery," Mao said.

The unregulated process usually involves breaking the patient's shin bones, inserting steel rods and attaching a cage by which doctors can control upward and downward pressure designed to stretch the bones while they are healing.

It is popular among "young professionals desperate to climb up the ladder in the country's height-conscious society," the official Xinhua news agency said.

The surgery costs an average of 15,000 dollars to 25,000 dollars and takes about two years for patients to recover, the agency quoted Beijing-based experts as saying.

But many of the mainly women patients who have had the surgery in recent years were left in constant pain, and some are unable to walk unaided, earlier state media reports said.

Ten people reported disfigurements last month in Beijing alone after they underwent surgery at the city's Xiangshan hospital last year, the agency said.

"Hospitals must inform patients of the risks of the surgery and get the patients consent," it quoted Mao as saying

"Health departments at all levels must investigate medical institutions that illegally carry out leg-lengthening surgery and punish those without the right qualifications," he said.

Television, magazines and newspapers also carry frequent, often wildly exaggerated advertisements for creams and medicines designed to increase people's height.

The surgical procedure was originally developed in Russia to help patients with injured legs or birth defects such as dwarfism, the agency said.

Dpa German Press Agency

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