Tennis ball-sized kidney stone removed from 46-year-old

The kidney stone (left) weighed 530 grams.

Doctors at the Kasturba Hospital have successfully removed a kidney stone weighing 530 grams from a 46-year-old person.

A press release issued by the hospital here on Saturday said that the man from Karkala was admitted recently after he complained of discomfort and pain, and also inability to control urination.

Padmaraj Hegde, Head of Department of Urology, examined the patient and found a 10x8 cm stone.

Dr. Hegde along with Zeeshan Hameed and Manjunath (professors in Urology Department) and Ramkumar, anaesthetist, performed an open cystolithotomy surgery to remove the stone that was bigger than a tennis ball. The patient has recovered fully, the release said.

What surprised the doctors was the size of the stone in a patient who was not old and had symptoms for just five days. Medical literature records only three stones bigger than this one — from China, Hungary, and Brazil, the release said.

In recent urological practice, a giant bladder stone is rare, especially those greater than 100 grams. While searching journals for articles on this topic in the last 30 years, less than 85 relevant reports were found. The available literature from India does record a single bladder stone weighing 800 grams from Ulhasnagar, the release said.

M. Dayananda, medical superintendent of Kasturba Hospital, said early detection was the key to better surgical outcome. Advanced facilities at the Urology Operation Theatre Complex in the hospital such as laser energy system was capable of breaking the hardest of the stones in an endoscopic method, he said.