Indian surgeons have cut a kidney weighing the same as a bowling ball out of a man with a life-threatening genetic condition, a surgeon says.

The 7.4 kilogram (16.3 pound) kidney is one of the biggest ever removed in an operation.

“It was a huge lump that was occupying half of his abdomen. We knew it was a big kidney but never thought it would be this heavy,” Sachin Kathuria, a member of the surgical team, told AFP.

The 56-year-old patient, suffering from autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease, underwent the two-hour operation at the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in Delhi last month.

A normal kidney weighs about 120 to 150 grams (four to five ounces) and is 12 centimeters (four inches) long.

Kathuria said the kidney cut out from the man was nearly 45 centimeters (18 inches) long.

The Guinness Book of Records says the largest kidney removed from a human was 4.25kg in an operation in Dubai in 2017.

Doctors at the New Delhi hospital said, however, they had found medical accounts of a kidney weighing nine kilos being cut from a patient.

The disease the unnamed man was suffering from causes cysts full of fluids to start growing in kidneys. Doctors called for the operation when they detected internal bleeding and spreading infections.

Kathuria said the man was now in good condition and on dialysis awaiting a kidney transplant.

(Source: AFP)