Gastrointestinal obstruction due to plaster ingestion: a case-report

Herein we report a case of a 37 year-old woman presenting with plaster ingestion and gastric outlet obstruction, who underwent surgery. At six months follow-up the patient was fully recovered.Plaster has no toxic or erosive effects. Endoscopic or surgical removing of such material is recommended. Moreover, psychiatric intervention and management is imperative to prevent recurrence in such cases.Bezoars are rare causes of gastrointestinal obstruction. They mostly originate in the stomach, and occur mainly in patients with psychiatric ailments who chew and swallow their hair (trichobezoar), vegetable fibres (phytobezoar), persimmon fibres (diospyrobezoar), or tablets/semi liquid masses of drugs (pharmacobezoar) [1-3]. Industrial materials including wood trashes, polystyrene have been reported as the rare causes of bezoar formation [4,5].In Iran many strange ways are recently used for suicide attempts [6,7]. One of the strangest ways of suicide is plaster ingestion, not have been reported yet.In this paper, a case of acute formed gastric bezoar due to ingestion of plaster is reported.A 37 year old housewife with a previous history of marital conflict was brought to surgical emergency department of Shohadaye-Ashayer Hospital, in Lorestan province situated in the west of Iran. The patient was presented with ingestion of 450 grams of saluted plaster for suicidal attempt. She had eaten the plaster solution seven hours before. The main complaints of the patient were vague epigastric pain, nausea and vomiting.The Patient had two history of unsuccessful suicidal attempt before. However, beyond all our expectations she had not undergone psychiatric management. She neither smoked nor was an alcoholic, or drug addict.The patient was hemodynamically stable, but not cooperative. There were no signs of trauma and burning on head and neck. Chest and abdominal physical exams were normal except for a bulging in upper abdomen and a palpable hard mass filling the epigasteric and left up