Doctors at New Delhi's Sir Ganga Ram Hospital have removed the world's longest stone from a patient's ureter using robotic surgery. The stone measured 22 cm in total, which is approximately the same length as the ureter. It weighs 60 grams. The longest ureteric stone so far had been reported in Utah of US and was 21.5 cms long.
Ureter is the tube that carries urine from the kidney to the urinary bladder.
The stone was found in the right ureter of a 35-year-old woman from Saharanpur in Western Uttar Pradesh. The patient, Natasha, was completely pain-free and unaware of the stone in her body when she reached the hospital.
"The use of surgical robot made it possible to remove such a long stone in a single surgery and allowed the stone removal with a minimum scar and quick recovery," said Dr Sachin Kathuria, consultant, Department of Urology, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital. The team of doctors – Dr Sachin Kathuria, Dr Ajay Sharma and Dr Vikram Batra used a robot (known as Da Vinci) to completely remove the stone in a single-stage procedure lasting four hours.
The surgical robot is available only in few hospitals across the country and helps make the surgery scar free and recovery from it early. Such large stones were traditionally removed by open or large incision procedures. Although current technology allows many modes of treating the stone with minimal invasion, none is fool proof and may need staged attempts at complete removal, say doctors. The functional outcome of the surgery was positive as the patient was discharged the second-day post-surgery.
Doctors suggest that a lot of stone cases come from North India and it remains the 'stone hub'. The only way to prevent this is by taking adequate fluid intake.
ROBOT IN PROCEDURE
- Doctors at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital used a robot to carry out the procedure
- The stone measured 22 cm, nearly the same length as the ureter
- It weighs 60 grams. The longest ureteric stone so far had been recorded in the US and it was 21.5 cm
