medicine
Guinness World Records: World’s largest kidney stone removed
The photo
© Sri Lanka Army/dpa
A 60-year-old complained of pain in the abdominal region. What the doctors then found must have surprised them just as much as the patient. After all, it has now made it into the Guinness Book.
In Sri Lanka, doctors removed the world’s largest kidney stone from a man, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. Doctors at the Army Hospital in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo removed the 801-gram stone a good two weeks ago, the Sri Lankan army said. It was more than five times the weight of the average man’s kidney. The object was also 13.372 centimeters long.
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Patient Canistus Coonge, in his 60s, a former soldier, spoke to local reporters and said he was fine several days after the operation. He had recently had a medical examination because of severe pain in the abdominal region. Coonge, a retired sergeant, told Swarnavahini TV that he had had abdominal pain since 2020. Taking medication didn’t help him.
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“Now I feel normal,” the patient said with relief a few days after the operation. Surgeon K. Sutharshan pointed out: “The most important thing for us is that the kidney functions normally despite the stone.”
The record for the largest and heaviest kidney stone was previously held by a 620 gram specimen found in a patient in Pakistan in 2008.
Kidney stones are deposits that form from insoluble substances in the urine. They form when minerals and salts clump together in the kidney. Passing kidney stones can be excruciatingly painful. If a kidney stone is too large, it must be surgically removed.
Sources: Guinness Book website, Communication from the Sri Lanka ArmyDPA, AFP