Indian docs remove kidney stones from Iraqi man

New Delhi, April 5 (IANS) Iraqi shopkeeper Naeem Musa had braced for a long, painful treatment for stones in both kidneys, as two earlier operations were not of much help. He had not imagined that a minimally invasive surgery at a private hospital in Delhi will cure his decade-old ailment.

Musa, 46, was told to go for a third major surgery by doctors back home. After a shooting pain, his family decided to bring him to Delhi, where doctors removed the multiple stones by a surgical technique called Percutaneous Nephrolithotomy (PCNL).

'When the patient came to us, we observed it was a serious stag-horn case where there are multiple stones in the entire kidney. One of his kidneys was damaged, while there were cuts on both the kidneys as they had already gone through two open surgeries in Iraq,' Anshuman Agarwal, senior consultant urologist at Fortis Hospital in Vasant Kunj, told IANS.

'It required a bilateral stone surgery. The kidneys had been operated upon before also, and any major surgery could have been fatal,' he added.

PCNL, a minimally invasive endoscopic treatment, makes a small incision in the back, opposite the kidney, to make way for a nephroscope that locates the exact position of the stones.

Agarwal explains: 'Three small incisions were made in this case. A nephroscope was then used to locate the existing stones that were 1-12 cm in radius. There were some residual stones that could not be taken out in the previous surgery.'

PCNL, believe experts, minimises the hospital stay of the patient with quick recovery, and is preferable to open surgery.

Musa, who was admitted to the hospital March 23, was discharged in just five days and went back to his hometown of Kirkuk.

The surgery costs around Rs.1 lakh ($2,250) in India, 10 times less than the cost in the US and European nations, said Agarwal.

According to health experts, the technique, common in metros, will help an increasing number of patients in Tier-II and III cities in the coming time.

'People will be more aware of the PCNL technique in the coming period. Till now, only a few ways of treating kidney stones were available, but this method is beneficial for serious cases of multiple stones,' Sandeep Mahajan, additional professor, department of nephrology at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), told IANS.

Mahajan sounds a note of caution on the dietary habits and changing lifestyle pattern that puts people at greater risk of kidney stones.

'These stones are calcium deposits, so they are largely dependent on what kind of food is there in a person's diet. Less fluids, red meat, high salt intake, nuts, chocolates are just some of the factors for forming kidney stones,' he said.

People with a hereditary history of stones too are at a greater risk of the disease, he said.

'Pain in the lower abdomen, fever or signs of blood in the urine, deep-orange tinge in the urine, or pain while urination should be reported to a doctor,' Mahajan added.