Liu Minxia

    mllmx@msn.com

    CLAD in elegant dresses, Cheng Hongyun and Cheng Xiaoting said that, due to their stature, they could hardly have imagined the normal life they are living now.

    They were only 1.05 meters tall at 16 and now the twin sisters in their 20s are more than 1.6 meters tall.

    “Our lives were changed after we received the treatment for our short statures,” said Cheng Hongyun, who, along with her sister, is now an office lady in Nanshan District.

    “We were mocked and self-pitied, which caused a huge psychology pressure. We can’t imagine where we would have been now if we hadn’t received the treatment.”

    The twin sisters are lucky. There are 55,000 children suffering from short stature in Shenzhen, and less than 1 percent of them have received treatment, statistics showed.

    “My biggest regret is that my family and I didn’t know about dwarfism when I was younger, and I missed the best time to treat the problem,” said Wang Linna, 26, who is 1.37 meters tall.

    “I was thought to be suffering from malnutrition, and wasn’t diagnosed with dwarfism until I was 25 years old.”

    Children are usually considered to have short stature if their height is two standard deviations (SD) or more below the average height of children of the same sex and age, according to Professor Zhang Qin of Shenzhen Children’s Hospital.

    “There are many reasons why a child has short stature,” said Professor Zhang Longjiang of the hospital.

    Most of the time, there is no medical cause for short stature, according to Zhang. Sometimes, short stature may be a symptom of medical conditions, for example, bone or skeletal disorders, growth hormone deficiency, poor growth of the baby while in the womb or being small for gestational age.

    “Early diagnosis and intervention of short stature and growth failure in children is the key,” said Professor Su Zhe of the hospital. “The best time is between 4 and 10 years old. The earlier the intervention is, the less the treatment costs.”

    To support children who suffer from the problem and increase awareness about the disease, Shenzhen Children’s Hospital is offering free treatment for 24 such patients for six months, which usually costs 80,000 yuan (US$11,602).

    Those who are interested can apply by calling 137-1085-5021.