Surgeons have removed a kidney weighing 7.4 kg, claimed to be the world's largest, from a 56-year-old man, authorities at a city hospital where the procedure was performed said on Monday. The kidney, removed after at wo-hour-long surgery performed recently, had occupied almost the entire abdo men of the patient, Dr Sachin Kathuria, Urology consultant at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital said."To put things into perspective, the kidney weighed more than two human newborn babies combined," he said.

A normal kidney weighs about 120-150 grams. The dimensions of the removed kidney are 32 x 21.8 cm and this happens to be the largestkidney removed till date globally, hospital authorities claimed.

"Although the pre-operative scans showed a huge kidney,we did not expect that it would be the heaviest," Dr Kathuria said.

The Guinness Book of World Records reports a kidney weighing4.25 kg as the world's largest kidney till now which was removed by doctors ata hospital in 2017 from a patient suffering from Polycystic Kidney Disease

Doctors from Sir Gang Ram Hospital are planning to apply tothe Guinness World Records in connection with this particular surgery.

The patient, a resident of Delhi, was suffering from agenetic disorder called Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Disease, acondition in which fluid-filled cysts develop in both kidneys causing them toswell up and leading to renal failure

The man started having intolerable pain in his left flankassociated with fever and breathing difficulty.

"We investigated and found that he had internalbleeding and infection within the cysts of his left kidney. It was at thispoint that we decided to take him up for surgery," Dr Kathuria said.

The decision to remove the kidney was taken as he did notrespond to intravenous antibiotics and the shear mass was good enough to offerhim such a procedure, he explained.

The patient has recovered well and has been discharged. Heis presently on dialysis and awaiting renal transplant, the doctor said.

Autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD) is aninherited genetic systemic disease occurring in 1:700 to 1:1,000 individuals.It is a common inherited disorder with 12.5 million cases worldwide.

The usual course of this disease is that it usuallyprogresses to renal failure and subsequently requires renal replacement therapyin the form of dialysis and renal transplant. The indication of removing kidneyin such patients is either infection, bleeding, renal tumour and palliation ofsymptoms.