Mumbai doctors remove 100gm ball of hair from a girl’s stomach

The girl was taking period medication as she got menses at the early age of nine. She has been having heavy bleeding followed by stomach pain for over a year but it did not interfere with her daily routine. Her parents took her to a doctor who performed an ultrasound scan and associated the pain with mesenteric lymphadenitis, which is swelling of the lymph nodes of the abdomen, and prescribed medication. This condition is commonly seen in patients of her age group leading to abdominal pain, doctors said.

The patient was given symptomatic treatment to manage the pain.

Dr Parag Karkera, the paediatric surgeon who treated the girl, said that on clinical examination they could feel a lump in the abdomen and admitted the patient. Patients with pain in the abdomen come routinely but there is no lump present, the doctor said.

“We conducted a CT scan, which showed a trichobezoar; ie. a mass of hair in the stomach, and some part of the mass was going into the duodenum (the first part of the small intestine),” he said.

An x-ray of the girl’s stomach showing 100gm ball of hair.

Hair is not able to dissolve, so it remains in the digestive system and then turns into a ball or mass, which keeps on growing. “This is rarely seen among children. This patient had trichotillomania (a condition wherein one develops a strong urge to pull out their own hair). Even her parents were unaware of her eating hair. After investigations, she was posted for laparotomy with gastrostomy and removal of the mass,” said Dr Karkera.

The patient was immediately operated upon where, through an opening in the stomach, the mass of the swallowed hair was removed.