The patient whose urine turned green

AMERICAN doctors were startled when a patient’s pee turned bright green. The 62-year-old man, from Chicago, had been taken to the city’s Weiss Memorial Hospital suffering with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a group of lung conditions that causes breathing difficulties.

He was attached to a ventilator and had an anaesthetic – but five days later his urine suddenly turned green. It was found to be a harmless reaction to the type of anaesthetic, called propofol. Dr Maja Boshkovska Spaseski, from the hospital, said that green urine was a ‘benign and uncommon phenomenon’ caused by the breakdown of propofol in the liver. After he was taken off propofol, the patient’s urine returned to its normal colour.