Doctors extract 420 stones from Chinese man's kidney

Doctors in China recently extracted about 420 stones from a man's kidney, reported China Daily.

The 55-year-old man from Zhejiang disliked drinking water and had been eating bean curd everyday until he fell sick.

He sought medical attention at a hospital after suffering increasing backaches. Images from a CT scan revealed hundreds of stones in his left kidney.

A Chinese doctor who has been practising medicine for eight years commented that he has "never seen so many stones."

However, Dhanraj Wadile from India still holds the record for the patient with the most kidney stones removed, according to the Guinness Book of Records.

An astounding 172,155 kidney stones were extracted from Wadile's left kidney in a three-hour-long operation in 2009.

Kidney stones are crystals made of mineral and acid salts that form in the kidneys, explains US nonprofit medical research group Mayo Clinic.

According to the Department of Urology at Singapore General Hospital (SGH), they can affect any part of the urinary tract from the kidneys to the bladder and cause pain when the patient passes urine.

Abdominal pain, blood in urine, and recurrent urinary tract infections (UTI) are the most common symptoms of the condition.

Besides extracting kidney stones through surgery, there are other non-invasive ways to treat less severe cases of the condition, says SGH.

If the kidney stone is small, increasing fluid intake can help flush the stone out of the body.

Medication can also help relax the ureter and pass out the stone, as well to relieve the pain.

A person can decrease his risk of developing kidney stones by consuming two to three litres of fluids daily, cutting down on his salt intake, limiting his intake of foods rich in purine and oxalates, and eating more citrus fruits.

Dr Nor Azahari from SGH said: "Without active dietary or medical therapy, the risk of having recurrent kidney stones is 50 per cent within 10 years."

minlee@sph.com.sg