Largest Kidney Stone Ever Found

Kidney stones are hard crystalline minerals that get formed within the urinary tract or kidney. Medical term for kidney stone is Nephrolithiasis, of which 5 types are known. These are calcium, uric acid, struvite, cysteine and drug-induced. The common systems include reduced volume of urine, blood in urine and pain that may become intolerable if not treated. In this article, we will discuss in brief about the kidney stone formation and the biggest kidney stone ever found on human body.

Many a time stones get formed but leave the body through urinary system. However, if they don’t get thrown out of the body, they start growing in size and cause pain in the region of ribs and hip. In case there are no symptoms, it is generally a worthwhile option to wait and watch if it gets thrown out of your body. If the stone doesn’t come on it own and causes pain, the patient is prescribed pain killers. More severe cases necessitate surgery for elimination of stones.

Because of surgical removal of stones we are now able to know the size and weight of stones. As per the Guinness book of awards the credit of removing the largest stone of 13 cm or 5.11 inches goes to Dr. Hemendra Shah of R.G. Stone Urological Research Institute in Mumbai, India, in February 2004.  However, records keep changing frequently.

Largest Kidney Stone
Largest kidney stone – 17 cm sized

We find that on January 20, 2009 surgeons in Hungary removed a stone that sized a coconut from the body of Sandor Sarkadi, who underwent an abdominal operation in Budapest. Surgeons discovered he had a kidney stone measuring 17 centimeters in diameter inside him.

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