Cows-feet soup: a rare cause of recurrent trichobezoar

BMJ Case Rep. 2012 Jul 3:2012:bcr0220125787. doi: 10.1136/bcr-02-2012-5787.

Abstract

A 45-year-old Afro-Caribbean woman attended the emergency department with worsening dysphagia, abdominal distension, abdominal pain, shortness of breath and generalised weakness. She enjoyed preparing and eating cows-feet stew and preferred to cook the meat with the hair and skin intact. On admission she had a severe microcytic anaemia and was malnourished. Abdominal x-ray and CT revealed a large gastric bezoar. At gastrotomy a foul-smelling 2.42 kg mass of hair, leathery skin and altered food were evacuated from the lesser curvature of the stomach. She had undergone the same procedure 8 years earlier to remove a similar trichobezoar. Following psychiatric review it was deemed that the patient had no underlying psychiatric condition and had full insight into why her trichobezoar had re-occurred. She made a good postoperative recovery and stopped eating cows-feet stew.

Publication types

  • Case Reports

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Bezoars / complications
  • Bezoars / diagnostic imaging*
  • Bezoars / surgery*
  • Cattle
  • Female
  • Food
  • Humans
  • Middle Aged
  • Radiography
  • Stomach*