City doctors remove a record 526 teeth from 7-year-old boy

P Ravindran had been complaining of pain and swelling in the jaw since he was three and little could be done about it at that time since he was too young for treatment. The boy lived with the pain for four more years before the parents suspected it to be cancer and approached SDCH.

To their surprise, however, a radiograph of the boy’s mouth revealed multiple tiny structures. On further evaluation, the doctors found 526 teeth like structures growing in his mouth. It took the specialists five hours of meticulate searching to remove all the teeth.

Dr Pratibha Ramani, professor and head of department of oral and maxillofacial pathology, said, “Ravindran’s parents were extremely apprehensive as they had thought his jaw had a cancerous growth. Initial work by the surgeons revealed a large lesion with multiple hard structures at a single site within the lower jaw. During the surgery, we noticed a well-defined bag weighing around 200 grams, which was removed,” said.

Further, pointing out that this is the first ever case to be documented world-wide, where so many minute teeth were found in a single individual, Dr Senthilnathan, a professor from the department of oral and maxillofacial surgery, said, “This rare lesion is called compound composite odontoma. But, the surgeons’ discretion in removing the lesion without exploring it on the operating table avoided a major mishap and saved the boy from being under general anaesthesia for a longer time.”

According to the hospital, the surgery, which would have cost around Rs 75,000 to Rs 1 lakh, was done for free under a Tamil Nadu government scheme.