BCCL Central Hospital Successfully Operates on Teenager with Rare Rapunzel Syndrome – Indian PSU
A team of doctors at BCCL Central Hospital, Dhanbad (CHD), has successfully performed a complex surgery on a 15-year-old girl suffering from the rare Rapunzel syndrome, removing a large mass of hair accumulated in her stomach.
The teenager had a history of hair-pulling and hair-eating for nearly 10 years, which had resulted in abnormal thinning of her scalp hair. In 2025, she was treated for hair loss at CMC Vellore, where a dermatologist and child psychiatrist diagnosed her with trichotillomania, a condition characterised by recurrent hair-pulling.
She later developed persistent abdominal pain and consulted a doctor at a BCCL colliery. An ultrasound examination raised the possibility of a trichobezoar, a mass of ingested hair accumulated in the stomach, following which she was referred to BCCL Central Hospital, Dhanbad.
A subsequent upper gastrointestinal endoscopy confirmed the presence of large clumps of hair inside the stomach. Such a mass is medically termed a gastric trichobezoar. When the hair mass extends from the stomach into the small intestine, the condition is known as Rapunzel syndrome.
Considering the complexity of the case, surgery was undertaken under the expert leadership of Dr Anish Gandhi. The surgical team performed an exploratory laparotomy with gastrotomy and successfully removed the large trichobezoar from the patient’s stomach.
The procedure involved close coordination among the surgical, anaesthesia and nursing teams, along with operation theatre staff and other medical and support personnel.
The successful intervention highlights the availability of specialised and multidisciplinary medical care at BCCL Central Hospital, Dhanbad, particularly for complex and uncommon clinical conditions.
Doctors emphasised that early medical and psychological intervention is important in cases of trichotillomania and trichophagia (the compulsive eating of hair). Timely treatment can help prevent complications such as trichobezoar formation and, in severe cases, Rapunzel syndrome.
BCCL management congratulated the doctors, nurses, operation theatre team and all personnel involved in the successful surgery.
