Indian doctors remove 7.4kg kidney from patient

Indian doctors have removed a kidney weighing 7.4kg (16.3lbs) - as much as two newborn babies - from a patient, BBC News reported.

It's believed to be the largest kidney ever removed in India - a kidney usually weighs between 120-150g.

The patient was suffering from a condition called Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Disease, which causes cysts to grow all over the organ.

One doctor involved in the operation said large kidneys were common in patients with the disease.

However Dr Sachin Kathuria, from Sir Ganga Ram hospital in Delhi, said doctors generally would not remove the organ unless there were symptoms of infection and internal bleeding, as they were performing at least some filtering functions in the body.

"This patient had contracted a bad infection that was not responding to antibiotics, and the kidney's massive size was causing the patient breathing difficulties, so we had no choice but to remove it," he said.