CHANGSHA -- A central Chinese hospital has performed a rare surgery in which a kidney was excised, the tumor and aneurysm removed before the organ was implanted back to the patient's body.

The surgery was conducted in late March at the Xiangya Hospital of Central South University in Central China's Hunan province in an innovative method that had not been documented before.

The patient is a 24-year-old woman who had wished to keep her right kidney despite having both a renal tumor and renal artery aneurysm, for which the conventional treatment is complete removal of the kidney.

The hospital summoned a multidisciplinary medical team led by Chen Minfeng to design the operation, which has seen the kidney excised, flushed with cold preservation solution and placed on the operating table for medics to swiftly remove the tumor and the aneurysm, and reconstruct renal blood vessels. Transplant doctors then implanted the kidney back into the patient's body.

Chen said the two lesions were too close to each other, leaving little space for the surgery to be safely conducted inside the abdomen, so to keep the kidney, the tumor removal should be performed outside the body.

The entire medical procedure took five hours, including 56 minutes of cold ischemia.

The patient has recently been discharged from hospital after recovery, according to the hospital.