Doctors in Nepal were stunned after discovering a large hairball lodged in the stomach of a four-year-old girl. The child, who has not been named, presented at a hospital with severe stomach pains lasting a week, accompanied by vomiting and a feeling of fullness after eating small amounts.
Medics found a 4x4cm (1.57in) firm lump, indicating a bezoar – a mass of undigested material. The girl was diagnosed with Rapunzel syndrome, a condition where a habit of eating hair leads to a stomach mass. Her parents reported she had been ingesting her own hair for two weeks and that the hair on her head had become thinner.
Surgeons performed a gastronomy to remove the hairball, described as a 'stomach-shaped mass' with a 'tail'. The case was published in a medical journal by doctors at the Institute of Medicine, Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu. Follow-up psychiatric evaluation for trichotillomania and trichophagia was recommended but not completed.
In a similar case in the UK, nine-year-old Sophia Goss from Norfolk underwent a four-hour operation last year to remove a hairball that had 'eaten through her stomach'. She had been pulling and eating her hair as a soothing technique since 18 months old. Her mother, Megan Sayce, said the hairball filled her entire stomach and had created a hole, causing leakage. Sophia spent 10 days in hospital, including seven in high dependency.
