NEW DELHI: In a rare medical case, a whopping 8,125 gallstones were removed from the abdomen of a 70-year-old man in a surgery that lasted an hour.

While the surgery, conducted at the Fortis Memorial Research Institute, Gurugram, lasted around 60 minutes, the stones took the team nearly six hours, the hospital said in a statement on Thursday. The patient had been suffering for years from chronic abdominal pain, intermittent fever, loss of appetite, and a feeling of heaviness in his chest and back.

Gallstones are often formed due to a cholesterol imbalance and may multiply over time.

The patient underwent laparoscopic gallbladder removal surgery on May 12, and according to the hospital, it is possibly the highest number of gallstones removed in Delhi-NCR.

“This case is indeed rare, though not unprecedented. Years of delay led to such a high accumulation of stones, which could have resulted in serious complications had treatment been delayed further,” Director of Gastrointestinal Oncology Doctor Amit Javed, who was part of the team that did the surgery, said.

He was discharged in a stable condition two days later. The patient had initially avoided treatment but was brought in after his condition worsened. An ultrasound revealed a densely packed gallbladder, prompting an urgent minimally invasive laparoscopic surgery, the statement added.

In extreme cases like this, untreated stones could increase the risk of pus formation within the gallbladder, thickening and fibrosis of the gallbladder wall and even an increased risk of gallbladder cancer.