Medical Must-See: Teen’s Rapunzel syndrome has a surprising twist in the tale
The trichobezoar measured 12cm x 30cm and weighed 1.5kg.
US doctors are reporting a rare case of Rapunzel syndrome involving a 16-year-old girl who nibbled her way to a 1.5kg bezoar and gastrointestinal obstruction without obvious hair loss or bald patches.
In another unusual twist, there was no psychiatric trigger for her trichotillomania and trichophagia, said clinicians from the Albany Medical Center in New York state.
The teen was transferred from another hospital with vomiting and a suspected gastrointestinal obstruction from a bezoar.
She had a palpable hard mass in the epigastrium, with left upper-quadrant tenderness over the mass. An abdominal CT scan confirmed a large bezoar in her stomach and duodenum.
