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Source:dailymail.co.uk Doctors in China have found a huge hairball in the belly of an eight-year-old girl who has had the habit of eating hair for six years. The hairy mass was said to be so big it nearly filled up the child's stomach, according to a hospital in the city of Xi'an in north-western China. Surgeons have removed a tiny part of the hairball via a four-hour surgical operation. They said the girl would need to undergo several procedures which would take more than 20 hours to have the entire furball extracted. A handout from Xi'an Children's Hospital shows the hairball inside Xiao Li. Doctors have found a furball which nearly filled up the eight-year-old girl's stomach during an ultrasound scan Surgeons have removed a tiny part of the hairball from the child who is now recovering in the hospital (pictured). Her mother said the girl started eating hair from the age of two The young patient, named Xiao Li, is thought to suffer from Rapunzel syndrome, a rare condition where hairballs are found in the digestive tract after a person ingests their own hair. WHAT IS RAPUNZEL SYNDROME?Rapunzel syndrome is a rare condition where hairballs are found in the digestive tract after a person ingests their own hair. This can be caused by trichophagia where a person compulsively eats their own hair. It is associated with trichotillomania, when someone can't resist pulling the hair out from anywhere on their body. It is predominantly found in young people who have learning disabilities or mental health problems including depression, anxiety and schizophrenia. Only 88 cases have been reported in medical literature, according to a 2016 discussion in BMJ Case Reports. They said it almost always affects women, with only three per cent of cases being over the age of 30. It is associated with trichotillomania, when someone can't resist pulling the hair out from anywhere on their body. Xiao Li's mother said her daughter started to tug hair off her dolls to eat when she was about two years old. Later on, the child started to consume her own hair. The girl would sometimes pull a handful of hair from herself at a time before putting it into her mouth, her mother claimed. 'I didn't care too much. [I didn't expect her habit of] eating hair to cause such a big problem,' the parent told Shaanxi News. 'I thought she would pass the hair she had eaten,' said the mother, adding that the girl had vomited out hair regularly. Xiao Li's mother took Xiao Li to hospital last month because she thought the child was too skinny and had bad appetite. According to Xi'an News, the eight-year-old girl weighs 15 kilograms (33 pounds) while the average weight for girls her age in China is 25 kilograms (55 pounds). During an ultrasound check-up, doctors at Xi'an Children's Hospital found a 'very large' bezoar, a solid mass of indigestible material, inside Xiao Li. Dr. Yang Hongbing said Xiao Li's bezoar was much bigger than any bezoars found in previous patients. Her team wound arrange further surgery depending on Xiao Li's physical condition The medical team immediately arranged endoscopic surgery for the girl. Dr. Yang Hongbing from the hospital told reporters that Xiao Li's bezoar was much bigger than any bezoars found in previous patients at the hospital. Dr. Yang said surgeons had to use medical pliers, net and lasso tools to pull out the hair strand by strand. What surgeons had removed during the four-hour operation was 'just the tip of iceberg', the hospital said. The hospital added that doctors wound arrange further surgery for Xiao Li depending on her physical condition. The girl is currently recovering from her last operation.
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