526 Teeth Removed From A 7-Year-Old Boy In Chennai

In a surprising and jaw-dropping incident in Chennai, doctors have extracted 526 teeth from the mouth of a seven-year-old boy named Ravindranath at the city's Saveetha Dental College and Hospital.

The abnormal teeth weren't visible from outside the mouth. It was embedded in the jaw bone, the dentists had to surgically remove all of them and retained his normal 21 teeth.

The child was suffering from a rare case of 'compound composite odontoma'. The doctors weren't able to conclude what had caused the abnormal growth of teeth, they said it could be because of radiation from mobile towers and genetic causes.

The boy was three years old when his parents noticed a small swelling in his right lower jaw. He was taken to a government hospital but, he did not cooperate with investigative procedures. Later as the swelling increased, the parents brought the boy to Saveetha Dental College and Hospital.

Doctors at this hospital conducted an X-ray and CT scan of the boy's lower right jaw which showed the 526 teeth following which the doctors decided on the surgery.

P Senthilnathan, Professor, Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at the hospital said, "We opened up the jaw after administering general anaesthesia and saw a bag/sack inside it. The sack, weighing about 200 grams, was carefully removed and was later found to contain 526 teeth - small, medium and big sized".

It took 5 hours for the doctors to remove all the teeth. Pratibha Ramani, Professor and Head of the Department, Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology said, "The boy was normal three days after the surgery".

According to the doctors, this is the first ever case documented in the world in which so many tiny teeth have been found in a person.