More than 1,400 stones removed from a kidney

The removal of a total of 1,424 stones from the kidney of a 52-year-old patient at Bijapur Kidney Foundation in north Karnataka caught the imagination of medical experts as well as the general public.

Dr S B Patil, who performed the surgery, told reporters that it could possibly be the first time in medical history that so many stones had been removed from the kidney of a human being. “I will approach the Guinness Book of World Records for an entry”, he said displaying the stones removed from the left kidney of Honnappa Moratagi, a farmer from Sindagi taluk in the district.

The stones removed from the farmer’s kidney were of various sizes with the biggest one being 4 centimetres by 6 centimeters and hundreds measuring upto 2 millimetres.

Honappa had been admitted to the Bijapur Kidney Foundation with a complaint of severe pain in the kidney area. The X-ray film showed that there were stones in his left kidney, which necessitated an immediate surgery for their removal. But, the doctors were in for a surprise when stones almost poured out of his kidney.

“It is nothing short of a miracle that his kidney was still functioning”, Dr Patil said. The surgery for removal of the stones in the kidney took more than three hours, he added.

Honappa, who was recovering at the hospital, told reporters that his condition had vastly improved after the removal of the stones from the kidney. He said he had been suffering from pain in the abdomen area for the last few months. “When the pain became unbearable, I approached the local doctors, who sent me to this specialist hospital”, he said.