Doctors Remove Massive Hairball From Girl's Stomach

A schoolgirl had a clump of hair weighing over half a kilo (1lb 2oz) removed from her stomach.

A shocking photo shows the size of the mass of hair removed from inside the teen, following emergency surgery in Tomsk, Siberia.

Medics operating on the teen found that her stomach was 80 per cent filled with hair, which was posing a major threat to her health.

The human stomach isn't able to digest hair, doctors said, so when large amounts are swallowed, like in this case, it accumulates and can turn into a giant clump.

Doctor-in-chief Andrey Karavaev said her gastrointestinal tract was in danger of being completely blocked, so it required urgent surgery at the Emergency Medicine Clinic Number Two, in Tomsk.

The unnamed teen is now said to be recovering well and 'feels much better' after the hair ball was removed. Well, yeah, I imagine she would.

Local media reports claim it is only the second known case of Rapunzel syndrome in the region in the past 25 years.

Doctors have said the girl may now need psychiatric care to help her overcome the condition, which is also known as trichophagia and can be associated with trichotillomania, a hair-pulling disorder.

In this instance, the teenager had complained about losing her hair before she was taken into hospital.

The uncommon syndrome is named after the character in the Brothers Grimm fairy tale.

BMJ reports the case of a six-year-old girl who was found to have a hairball weighing 2100g and measuring approximately 11cm by 16cm with 110cm 'tail'. The girl's parents said their daughter did have a habit of putting her hair in her mouth, which she had most likely been swallowing over the years.