12,000 gallstones found inside woman’s stomach

International Desk: A doctor was astonished to remove a staggering 11,950 gallstones from inside an Indian woman - thought to be a new world record.

Minati Mondal, 51, had been suffering from crippling stomach pain and acid reflux for two months. Two weeks ago, she was admitted to Debdoot Sevayan Hospital in Kolkata, West Bengal, in eastern India.

After conducting tests and ultrasounds, doctors found she was suffering from a severe case of gallstones. These are balls made of cholesterol and salts that form in the gallbladder, a little pear-shaped organ underneath the liver that stores bile.

But they did not expect to find such a huge number of stones. Dr Makhan Lala Saha, a gastrointestinal endosurgeon at the hospital, said he was anticipating large number of stones but was still shocked when the number crossed the 5,000 mark.

He removed nearly 12,000 stones in an hour long laparoscopic surgery, where surgeon access the inside of the abdomen and pelvis through a `keyhole` cut, without having to make large incisions in the skin.

Dr Saha said: `I was astonished to see the large number of stones that we extracted from the gall bladder of this patient. `I had never thought a gall bladder could contain so many stones.

Dr Makhan Lala Saha, a gastrointestinal endosurgeon at the hospital, said he was anticipating large number of stones but was still shocked when the number crossed the 5,000 mark.

He removed nearly 12,000 stones in an hour long laparoscopic surgery, where surgeon access the inside of the abdomen and pelvis through a `keyhole` cut, without having to make large incisions in the skin.

Dr Saha said: `I was astonished to see the large number of stones that we extracted from the gall bladder of this patient. `I had never thought a gall bladder could contain so many stones.

Source: Daily Mail

risngbd/Dhaka/Nov 28, 2015/A K Azad