Doctors at Fortis Hospital here on July 9 said they removed 856 stones from the left kidney of a 45-year-old patient at one go, using minimally invasive surgical techniques.

The patient was brought to the hospital when he noticed blood in his urine. The ultrasound showed the presence of two large stones in his kidney. "The patient had a history of stones in the left kidney and was first operated in 2007. There were no visible symptoms of kidney stones this time, except for the fact, he started passing blood in urine only two days prior to the operation," Rajinder Yadav from Fortis Hospital Shalimar Bagh said in a statement.

"The ultrasound showed the presence of two stones, which were roughly 33 millimetres each in size. As the surgery progressed, 856 stones were found in the left kidney and urinary tract. The surgery was done using minimally invasive techniques, which resulted in less pain and loss of blood," Yadav explained. The team explained that for the surgery a temporary tubing was put in the left ureter after removing the stones, to circumvent the ureteric obstruction.

Subsequently, the patient was planned for second stage surgery to correct the obstruction with a minimally invasive procedure -- laser endopyelotomy. The doctors added that the patient was discharged the next day after his successful surgery. According to the Guinness World Records, an Indian doctor holds the record for removing the highest number of kidney stones from a patient. The most kidney stones removed from a patient is 172,155. Dr Ashish Rawandale had operated on the patient at the Institute of Urology, Dhule, Maharastra in 2009, according to the Guinness World Records website.