A remarkable medical feat was accomplished when an Indian surgeon removed an astonishing number of gallstones from a 51-year-old patient, setting a new world record.
The patient, Minati Mondal, was in severe abdominal distress, complaining of intense pain when she was brought to Debdoot Sevayan Hospital in Kolkata, situated in the eastern part of the Indian state of West Bengal.
The medical investigation, conducted by Dr. Makhan Lala Saha, a renowned gastroenterologist and endosurgeon, identified that the root cause of Mondal's pain and acid reflux was her gallbladder.
In a laparoscopic procedure that lasted an hour, Dr. Saha successfully extracted an astonishing 11,950 gallstones. The nurses took a considerable amount of time to count them all.
The medical team expressed their amazement as they anticipated a substantial number of gallstones, but never imagined that this case would set a new world record.
Dr. Saha stated, “I was astounded by the sheer number of stones we extracted from the patient’s gallbladder. It never crossed my mind that a gallbladder could hold so many stones. My assistants spent four hours just counting the stones, which ranged in size from 2mm to 5mm. We managed to remove them in a span of 50 minutes.”
In an effort to preserve this unprecedented medical discovery for posterity, Dr. Saha has penned a letter to the Royal College of Pathologists in London, proposing to exhibit the specimen in a museum.
He reflected on his past experience, “Two months ago, I operated on a woman who had 1,110 stones. I was astonished then, but in the course of my research, I found that British doctors had removed 3,110 stones from a German patient's gallbladder back in 1983. Given that the number of stones in this case is triple the previous record, I am confident that this could supersede it.”
The patient made a steady recovery and, after spending two days in the hospital, she was discharged in good health.
Gallstones are solidified deposits of digestive fluids that can accumulate in the gallbladder. They vary in size, ranging from as small as a grain of sand to as large as a golf ball. The pain associated with gallstones, known as biliary colic, is usually experienced in the upper right section of the abdomen.
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