1.1 lb hairball found in girl's stomach

Doctors in Luoyang, Henan province have removed a 500 gram (1.1 lb) hairball from the stomach of a 12 year old girl. 

The girl's mother had her admitted to hospital after she "inexplicably" lost weight and much of her hair over the past year. CT scans revealed a 30 cm long clump of hair which was taking up almost 70 percent of the girl's stomach. 

"The mass of hair was shaped like her stomach and is solid," said Chen Ye, deputy director of gastrointestinal tumor surgery department at the hospital.

Doctors diagnosed the girl as suffering from pica, a pathological disorder "characterized by an appetite for substances largely non-nutritive, such as ice, clay, chalk, dirt, or sand." 

"I've seen her put hair in her mouth, but I thought she was just playing and didn't think much about it," the girl's mother told reporters. 

[Image via ECNS]