Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Arman Babajanian losing his sight.

Recently it was discovered that one of the first political prisoners in post-Soviet Armenia, Arman Babajanian, has a brain tumor. He was imprisoned by the Kocharian administration a few years ago because he is the founder of the independent Zhamanak.com newspaper.

The Sargsian administration is now denying treatment. He has been diagnosed with cystic adenoma of the pituitary gland (from what I understood from the Armenian diagnosys "հիպոֆիզի կիստոզ ադենոմա (7.5 մմ), հետտրավմատիկ էնցեֆալոպատիա՝ ցնցումային համախտանիշով, ձախակողմյան հեմիպարեզով") which hopefully is still benign. Given that the tumor is growing rapidly and is causing him to lose his vision, the sooner the adenoma is removed surgically, the better the chance that it doesn't turn into cancer. The diagnosys talks about encephalopathy cause by a trauma to the head...

He will regain his freedom this September.

3 comments:

tzitzernak2 said...

Do you have a source (with more information maybe?) for this?

I showed it to a physician friend who says that the symptoms don't quite fit with the diagnosis (it doesn't quite make sense), and it sounds like maybe they've made the wrong diagnosis and/or beat him (especially given the 'post traumatic' part).

Ankakh_Hayastan said...

Unfortunately, I don't have more information. The source was an article today in Aravot. The post-traumatic encephalopathy suggests a massive head trauma - something that is easily acquired in the hands of the Armenian police.

"հիպոֆիզի կիստոզ ադենոմա (7.5 մմ), հետտրավմատիկ էնցեֆալոպատիա՝ ցնցումային համախտանիշով, ձախակողմյան հեմիպարեզով" sounds quite serious even though I am not an expert in Armenian terminology and can make educated guesses only. They've done an MRI but the pictures are not available online to see what is going on.

Ankakh_Hayastan said...

Here's the article:

http://new.aravot.am/am/articles/politics/65993/view