Hyderabad, Nov 19 (IANS): In a rare feat, doctors at the KIMS Hospitals here saved a 39 year-old man by conducting an open kidney surgery to remove a large stone of the size of a potato.

The stone, measuring eight centimetres, occupied almost the entire left kidney, resulting in its reduced functioning at only 18 percent. Considering the size of the stone, doctors had to go for open surgery on the patient, said a statement from the hospital.

The patient, a farmer from Karimnagar, had come to KIMS Hospitals with complaints of pain in the left flank for 15 days.

Upon investigation, Neil N Trivedi, Consultant Urologist, and his team found that the patient had a large stone in the left kidney due to which his kidney was poorly functioning.

"Usually with such a large size stone, the kidney function would have been damaged. But to our surprise this patient had partially preserved renal function and therefore we planned to remove the stone. We planned for Anatrophic Nephrolithotomy - a surgery in which the kidney is completely split to remove the stone as a whole and then kidney was re-sutured. The patient recovered well and has been discharged with normal renal parameters." said Trivedi.

According to doctors, this was a case of silent kidney stones. Unlike regular pain and other symptoms involved in regular kidney stones, silent stones never show any sign or symptoms until the kidney function is typically affected.