Hair growing in the THROAT of a 52-year-old, a rare complication resulting from decades of smoking

A man who smoked a pack of cigarettes a day for thirty years experienced a rare complication arising from his habit, causing hair to grow deep in his throat.

The patient visited doctors in 2007 complaining of a hoarse voice, difficulty breathing and a chronic cough. He told doctors that he had started smoking in 1990 at the age of 20 and that he had already coughed up a hair once.

Based on his symptoms, doctors performed a procedure that allowed them to guide a tiny camera through the patient’s airways. They discovered several hairs growing from an area in his throat that he had previously undergone surgery on.

Although the medical team was able to remove the hairs, they continued to regrow and the patient returned to the hospital every year for the next fourteen years with the same symptoms.

The condition was not treated until the now 52-year-old quit smoking and doctors burned the hair cells in his throat in 2022, preventing them from returning.

The images above show hair stuck in the man’s throat. Doctors picked these out every year for fourteen years. Doctors eventually stopped the hairs when the man stopped smoking

The man from Austria was diagnosed with endotracheal hair growth, or hair growth in the throat.

The condition is extremely rare; only a handful of cases have been recorded in the medical literature. The causes are unclear and the case report authors said this was only the second case of this kind.

However, doctors claimed that the growth in this case was caused by smoking.

The experts said smoking can cause inflammation of the tissue in the throat, which can cause stem cells to turn into hair follicles – or a hair-growing group of cells and structures.

Normally, there were six to nine centimeters long hairs in the man’s throat, some of which managed to penetrate his larynx and grow into his mouth.

Revealing the case in the American Journal of Case Reportsdoctors said: ‘We hypothesize that the onset of hair growth was caused by the patient’s cigarette smoking.

‘(This) may have induced and stimulated endotracheal hair growth. (But of course this assumption cannot be proven due to the rarity of such cases.’

The doctors also noted that the patient had nearly drowned at the age of 10, which resulted in his trachea – the part of the trachea below the voice box – being cut open so an air tube could be placed so he could breathe.

The opening was later closed using cartilage and skin from his ear, with hair growth detected around the site and transplanted into the throat.

About 28.3 million Americans smoke – or one in 10 people – although it is extremely rare for the habit to lead to hair growth in the throat.

The patient reported that his symptoms began in 2006, approximately 16 years after he started smoking.

He complained of difficulty breathing at night, hoarseness, snoring and chronic coughing.

When he first sought medical attention in 2007, doctors also discovered inflammation in his throat and scabs that had formed.

In addition to removing them, he was treated with antibiotics because doctors discovered that the hairs were covered in bacteria.

Over the next almost fifteen years, the man again visited doctors for rechecks and repeated removals.

Each time the hair was removed, they said the patient was immediately relieved of his symptoms.

Despite the chronic condition, doctors did not want to perform the curative procedure until the man stopped smoking, which he did in 2020.

The hair growth was eventually stopped after doctors performed endoscopic argon plasma coagulation – burning the root from which the hair grows – when the patient was 49.

A year after this procedure, two hairs were removed from the throat and coagulation was performed again. No hairs have grown back since then.