Massive hairball weighing 700 grams removed from girl's stomach

Surgeons removed a huge hairball weighing 700 grams from the stomach of a 14-year old girl at a private hospital in Thessaloniki last month.

The girl was brought in suffering from pain in the abdomen and examined by a paediatric surgeon, who asked for a scan after witnessing a specific action the girl performed with her hair. The scans revealed the existence of a large mass in her stomach.

The girl underwent open abdominal surgery because the hairball proved too big to remove laparoscopically. Such hairballs - or trichobezoars - are the result of what is known as 'Rapunzel syndrome', the children's surgeon Katerina Rammata told the ANA.

The Rapunzel syndrome is an extremely rare intestinal condition in humans resulting from ingesting hair (trichophagia). According to estimates, the hairball was created over a period of 12 years, as the girl's mother said that she had noticed that her daughter was eating her hair since the age of two.

Rammata said that it is an extremely rare phenomenon, adding that "Roughly 500 cases have been reported throughout the world.... I, personally have not encountered such a case before now".