Rapunzel Syndrome: Doctors Remove Massive Hairball From Teen's Stomach

Doctors removed a massive hairball from the stomach of a teen from the U.K. who had a history of eating her own hair. The hairball had reportedly become so large that it took the shape of her stomach and damaged her stomach wall.

The problem came to light when the 17-year-old went to the emergency department after fainting twice, the authors of a report published in BMJ Case Reports said. Examinations revealed a mass in her upper abdomen.

The teen also reported experiencing abdominal pain in the past months. This pain had reportedly grown worse two weeks before her visit to the hospital.

A contrast-enhanced CT scan then revealed the source of her pain: a large hairball in her stomach. Medically called a trichobezoar, the hairball was already so large that it caused a tear in her stomach wall.

When the doctors removed it via a laparotomy and gastrotomy, they found that the hairball was already cast in the shape of the entire stomach, Science Alert reported.

Fortunately, the procedure was successful and the teen had an "uneventful" recovery. She was released from the hospital following a psychiatric review.

"Though uncommon, bezoars should be included in our differential diagnosis as they can present in various ways owing to their size and weight," the authors of the study wrote. "This case illustrates the risk of gastric perforation with large gastric bezoars."

Compulsive Eating Of Hair

The teen was diagnosed with Rapunzel Syndrome, a case in which a patient has a trichobezoar with a tail-like extension. Risk factors for Rapunzel Syndrome include depression, body dysmorphia, previous surgeries, trichotillomania and the related trichophagia, Radiopaedia explained.

In the case of the 17-year-old, she reportedly has a history of trichotillomania, or the condition wherein someone has an urge to pull their own hair, and trichophagia, the compulsive eating of one's hair.

Not all people who have trichotillomania also have trichophagia. And according to TrichStop, trichophagia is different from the hair chewing that young children tend to do when they get bored. In cases of trichophagia, the individual actually swallows hair. Since human hair does not get digested, it may accumulate in the stomach and could eventually turn into a hairball.

In some cases, the Rapunzel syndrome brought about by eating hair can even be deadly. In 2017, a 16-year-old passed away from an infection because of the hairball that had accumulated in her stomach from years of chewing and eating her hair.