Trichobezoars in the practice of a pediatric surgeon

Material and methods. A retrospective analysis of medical records of two children. Anamnestic, clinical, diagnostic and intraoperative findings were analyzed.
Purpose. To describe cases of trichobezoars in children : occurrence, diagnostics and treatment.
Results. In the first case, a girl, aged 5, often swallowed her own hair after a psychological trauma; and at the age of 15 she complained of hair loss and anemia. In the second case, a boy was chewing and swallowing his own hair for 6 months under the emotional stress. Two weeks before hospitalization he complained of abdominal pain. In both cases, there were no history of intestinal obstruction. At the fibroesophagogastroduodenoscopy, foreign bodies were visualized which were diagnosed as trichobezoars. X-ray diagnostics confirmed foreign bodies in both patients. Those bodies had the shape of the stomach and had an inhomogeneous porous structure. The patients were operated: laparotomy, gastrotomy with removal of dense hair formation. Postoperative course was uneventful.
Conclusion. Psychological situations provoked in children the obsessive trichotillomania and trichophagia due to which large trichobezoars were formed in the stomach.