Doctors Remove Giant Bladder Stone Bigger Than a Newborn Baby

(Doctors Have Removed Giant Bladder. Photo by BBC News)

Surgeons in Sri Lanka extracted a 3.1-kilogramme bladder stone from a patient, a specimen they believe represents the largest ever documented and surgically removed.

The procedure took place last week at a hospital in Trincomalee, in the eastern region of the country.

The 55-year-old patient had been hospitalised following a stroke.

Whilst undergoing treatment for that condition, clinicians identified stones in the urinary bladder after observing impaired urination.

During surgical intervention, physicians removed the stone comparable in mass to a full-term infant and approximate in dimension to an ostrich egg.

The lead surgeon indicated that according to available clinical records, the specimen constitutes the largest bladder stone ever documented and extracted through surgical means.

He noted the patient was in excellent general health.

The patient remains hospitalised, continuing treatment for other medical conditions.

The surgeon estimated the stone had inhabited the patient's bladder for approximately five to ten years.

Bladder stones develop when urinary minerals undergo crystallisation, forming solid masses.

The condition commonly emerges when the bladder incompletely empties, leaving concentrated urine that crystallises.

Stones comparable to sand particles can self-expel, whereas stones exceeding one centimetre frequently obstruct urine passage and necessitate medical intervention. Stones larger than four centimetres are classified as giant.

According to global records, the previous largest documented bladder stone was extracted from a patient in Brazil in 2003, weighing 1.9 kilogrammes and measuring 17.9 centimetres in length.

The Sri Lankan specimen measured approximately 17 centimetres.