![]() ![]() "The facial appearance is not convincing. Most patients also have massively enlarged colons that bulge visibly, gurgle audibly and produce large amounts of gas - symptoms not generally attributed to Lincoln. In the patients Moley sees, droopy eyelids with thickened edges and prominent, bumpy upper lips are the most striking features. If Abraham Lincoln had MEN 2B, he would be the first recorded case. He suspects there are about 500 in all in the United States. Moley's department has 82 patients with MEN 2B in its database. Moley, a surgeon and an expert in the disease at Washington University School of Medicine in St. MEN 2B is the "rarest of the rare hereditary cancer syndromes," said Jeffrey F. ![]() (Sotos thinks there is some chance that Lincoln's mother, who died at age 34, may have had it.) In the remainder of cases, the mutation appears spontaneously in the sufferer, who can then pass it on to children. In about half the cases, patients inherit the disease from a parent. Nearly every victim gets cancer of the thyroid gland, and about half also get cancer of the adrenal gland. ![]() ![]() MEN 2B is short for "multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2B." It is a subtype of a genetic disease whose sufferers invariably develop cancer in a hormone-producing organ. ![]()
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