KOLKATA:An undergraduate student in the city has created a national record of sorts. No, not by securing top marks in any examination, but by carrying 1,110 stones in her gall bladder.
Komal Bajaj, a 23-year-old third year B.Com student, was operated upon by a team of surgeons at the state-owned super multi-speciality SSKM Hospitals and Medical College.
Head of surgery at SSKM Makhalal Saha said that he had never seen or heard of such a case. A few days ago, a patient after surgery was found to be carrying 360 stones and that had created a flutter in medical circles in the city. Komal had been admitted to a private nursing home a month ago with acute pain in her lower abdomen. After conducting a series of tests including USG and MRI ultra sonography it was detected that there were a large number of stones in her gall bladder. She was then admitted to SSKM and a team of surgeons headed by Saha performed a laparoscopy by making four small holes. To their amazement the surgeons found 1,110 small stones of golden colour, giving her gall bladder the appearence of a “gold mine”.
It took hours and a lot of effort for the surgeons to take out such a large number of stones from Komal’s gall bladder.
Saha said, “We tried to deflect the gall bladder from the liver, but because of the stones the gall bladder was heavy and would not come out. In my professional career spanning over three decades I have never seen such a large number of stones in a gall bladder. This might be the largest number of gallstones removed from a patient in the country. We will send our case report to several international medical journals.”
Komal, who is recuperating, told Saha, “I want to take the stones and keep them as a memento.”