A Brief Description on Bezoar Disease

Allen Wendy^*
*Correspondence: Allen Wendy, Department of Hepatology and Gastroenterology, Mansoura University, Mansoura, Egypt, Email:

Description

A bezoar is a solid mass of indigestible material that accrues in our digestive tract and sometimes causing a blockage. Bezoars commonly form in the stomach, but sometimes it found in the small intestine or, rarely, the large intestine. Children and adults also affected with this disease. Mostly bezoars happen to the people with certain risk factors like if they have had gastric surgery that consequence in delayed stomach emptying.

• Have reduced stomach size or reduced stomach acid production

• Have end-stage kidney disease or diabetes

• Receive breathing help with mechanical ventilation

Trichobezoar is another type of bezoar which occurs in people with psychiatric disease or developmental disorders.

According to the material Bezoars are classified that forms them:

• Phytobezoars are made of complex food fibers, like cellulose. These fibers present in fruits and vegetables, with celery, pumpkin, prunes, raisins, leeks, beets, persimmons and sunflower-seed shells. These are the most common kind of bezoar.

• Trichobezoars are made of hair like fibers, such as clothing fibers. The severe cases, known as "Rapunzel's syndrome," the compressed fibers can fill the stomach with a tail extending into the small intestine. Especially in adolescent girls Rapunzel's syndrome is most common.

• Pharmacobezoars are composed of medications that are difficult to dissolve in the digestive tract.

Bezoars can cause nausea, weight loss, vomiting, deficiency of appetite, and a feeling of fullness after eating only a little food. It can be the reason of gastric ulcers, obstruction and intestinal bleeding, leads to tissue death in a part of the digestive tract.

Small bezoars may permit through the digestive tract and after medication it aids in melting the mass. In complicated cases, especially large trichobezoars mostly need surgery.

If we aren’t at risk of bezoars, it’s unlikely that you will develop one. Though, for those at risk, decreasing the consumption of foods with an increased level of complex cellulose may help to decrease this risk. Although older adults are commonly at greater risk for phytobezoars, some types of bezoars are more often found in children. Lactobezoars are the most common type to affect infants.

Risk factors of lactobezoars in infants comprise:

• Dehydration

• Prematurity and low birth weight

• Consumption of high-calorie formula

• Addition of thickening agents, such as pectin, to formula

Trichobezoars are mostly found in young females who chew, suck and swallow their own hair. The existence of a trichobezoar may show an important psychiatric issue. Small intestinal bezoars are made up of hair, undigested food, or medications such as antacids which are non-absorbable.

Conclusion

Bezoars and enteroliths are rare in the small intestine. Proximal to strictures related to Crohn's disease, tuberculosis etc. formed by bezoars. The areas of the world where persimmons are eaten, most phytobezoars are associated to consumption of unripe persimmons.

Bezoars are usually observed as a single mass, but they can include several masses. They may vary in colour from brown, green, yellow, or even black. Doctors sometimes try to eradicate a part of the bezoar during the endoscopy and examine it under a microscope to search for hair or plant material.