Shi Jingde, a 100-year-old Shanghai woman, yesterday left Huadong Hospital after having fully recovered from surgery to remove her gallbladder.

Doctors believe Shi is the oldest person in the city's history to undergo the surgery.

Shi, who doesn't have children, now lives in a rest home near Huadong Hospital. She was hospitalized last December after non-surgical techniques were unable to cure her of cholecystitis, an inflammation of the gallbladder.

Doctors had previously been reluctant to treat the problem surgically due to Shi's age.

"This time, however, the serious situation cornered us enough to take the risk of an operation, because if we didn't do it, she would die," said Song Xiaohua, a doctor in the hospital's intensive care unit.

A surgical team led by Dr Yuan Zhurong successfully removed Shi's gallbladder and a gallstone at the end of last year.

The operation did have its problems as Shi suffered from arrhythmia, pneumonia and multiple organ dysfunction syndrome afterwards, said Chen Zhen, a nurse who looked after the woman.

"She herself tried to pull out the medical tubes in her body as a way to express her antipathy to the operation," Chen added.

Convincing Shi to undergo the surgery was a difficult task, doctors said.

It was the doctors, the nurses as well as her cousin's daughter, the only relative she has, who finally persuaded her.

"I'm already 100 years old - old enough. Even if I recover, I'm still lonely in the world," she said.

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