Khanh Hoa General Hospital has just received a 7-year-old girl with prolonged abdominal pain, accompanied by episodes of vomiting.
Through initial examination, ultrasound suspected atypical bowel cavity, but the doctor discovered an additional abnormal mass in the epigastric region.
CT scans then determined that there was a large foreign object occupying almost the entire stomach, extending down to the small intestine, with a porous structure like "sponge" - a sign of long-term accumulation.
From there, the patient was diagnosed with Rapunzel syndrome - a rare form due to swallowing hair and non-digestible objects. The patient underwent surgery, removing a large mass consisting of hair, cotton and wool fiber adhered, filling the stomach and spreading down to the small intestine.
According to the doctor, this case is special because the patient swallowed many types of foreign objects, while usually it was mainly hair. In the past 7 years, the department has recorded and operated on 6 similar cases.
After surgery, the patient's health improved significantly, usually stabilizing after about 3 days if there were no complications. The family said they were surprised to discover the child's habit of eating hair.
Experts believe that the behavior of eating hair, cotton... is often related to non-food eating disorders and hair pulling disorders, which occur silently and are easily overlooked.
Doctors recommend that parents pay attention to signs such as recurrent abdominal pain, vomiting of unknown cause, poor appetite, weight loss, feeling a hard mass in the upper abdomen or the habit of chewing or sucking on strange objects.
If not detected early, the foreign object can cause stomach obstruction, intestinal obstruction, ulcers, infection and require emergency surgery.
