Doctors operate on 232 teeth from the jaw

Indian physicians operated on 232 teeth from the jaw at the age of 17

07/24/2014

A 17-year-old Indian complained of food discomfort, which worsened progressively. When a strong swelling on his right lower jaw was no longer to be overlooked, the teenager went to the doctor. He referred the unusual case to the JJ Hospital in Mumbai. What the surgeons operated out of the boy's jaw during a seven-hour operation exceeded all expectations: they removed a total of 232 teeth from the 17-year-old's lower jaw.

232 teeth developed from a single molar tooth
At the dental clinic of the JJ Hospital, chief physician Sunanda Dhivare-Palwankar and her team took over the case. For seven hours, they operated on Ashik Gavai, producing 232 teeth. All teeth were apparently formed by a single molar tooth. „We started to get the little teeth out of the abnormal molar tooth. These small pearls varied in size, some were as small as a mustard seed and some nearly as big as a marble. At the final count we had 232 of them“, Dhivare-Palwankar told the newspaper „The Times of India“. „The fact that they came from a single molar tooth is unique.“

In addition, the doctors said they had one „marble-like“ Presh bone structure and remove in pieces. The head doctor spoke of a world record since she has not heard of any similar case in the medical literature so far. She was only a patient known in which 37 teeth were removed.

When asked how such a number of teeth can come into the jaw, Dhivare-Palwankar told the newspaper: „It is a developmental anomaly that has affected the molar tooth in its developmental phase, or rather when it was still a child. The medical term for this condition is complex composite odontoma. In other words, it could also be called a benign tumor.“

The dental surgeon was able to save Gavais pine without permanent damage, a great relief for the 17-year-olds.