Anantapur hospital treats man for rare hydatid cyst of kidney

Anantapur: Those who breed dogs at home or move closely with them outside should be very careful while taking food. If not, one may contract a very rare problem called hydatid cyst. It is one of the most important zoonotic diseases that is caused by echinococcus granulosus. A 54-year-old man was successfully treated for hydatid cyst of the kidney at a hospital in Anantapur.

Hydatid cysts can appear in the liver and lungs and rarely in the heart, breast, thyroid, soft tissue of the neck, and kidneys. Hydatid cyst of the kidney (3%) is a rare disease that may have no symptoms for years and appear only in one in every five lakh population.

The patient was treated successfully in KIMS Saveera Hospital in Anantapur. Senior consultant urologist and renal transplant surgeon Dr Durgaprasad explained the case and the surgery.

“A patient aged about 54 years had a hydatid cyst of the kidney. He had abdominal pain and decreased appetite for a year. He was vomiting persistently for three months and only responding to parental antiemetics. The patient had lost a lot of weight in the last six months and during evaluation outside, it was found that his right kidney was swollen,” said Dr Durgaprasad.

He added, “The patient was referred to our institute, and on further evaluation, we found that he the patient had a big hydatid cyst of size 15x17.5 cm, occupying and compressing the entire right kidney. The cyst has densely adhered to the inferior surface of the liver superiorly and inferior vena cava medially.”

Dr. Durgaprasad further explained, “We took this challenging case and the patient was started on albendazole 10mg/kg tablets to kill any live parasites. The patient was taken for laparotomy and the hydatid cyst was removed along with the right kidney with great difficulty. The operative time was four hours. After the operation, the patient recovered well by the third day and was discharged on the fourth day without any complications. A biopsy confirmed it was hydatid cystic disease of the kidney. We are following up on the patient’s recovery for the past two months every two weeks through ultrasound scan, liver function test, and urine analysis. No recurrence was observed.”

Hydatid cyst of the kidney is a very rare condition with an incidence of one in five lakh population. The difficulty in tackling this case is that the surgery should be done meticulously and carefully without rupturing the hydatid cyst. If the cyst gets ruptured and its contents spill, it can lead to immediate anaphylaxis and the patient can die on the table, the doctor explained.

“Earlier, these cases were restricted only to institutions. But now, with available surgical expertise and infrastructure, we can do these difficult life-saving surgeries free of cost under Arogyasree,” said Dr Durgaprasad.

Consultant urologist Dr Narendranath, chief anaesthetist Dr Ravishankar, and anaesthetist Dr Chandrasekhar also took part in the surgery.