Doctors remove 526 teeth from 7-year-old boy's jaw

Chennai dentists extract 526 teeth from the mouth of a seven-year-old boy. Pic courtesy/Twitter/ANI

Chennai: In a bizarre incident, around 526 teeth of varying sizes were extracted from a seven-year-old boy's right lower jaw in a five-hour surgery carried out by doctors of a private dental college-cum-hospital recently. According to PTI, the doctors claim it is the world's first case in which such a large number of teeth have been found and extracted from a single site.

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The Head of Department of oral and maxillofacial pathology at the Saveetha Dental College and Hospital Dr. Pratibha Ramani stated that the boy was brought to the hospital with a complaint of a swelling in the jaw. "The issue was noticed when the child was three years old. It was ignored then as he did not cooperate.. four years later, it took a lot of efforts to convince him for the surgery as the swelling increased," Ramani told PTI.

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Though the size varies, we call it teeth because every piece had elements of teeth (enamel and root) in it, she stated, adding the boy was discharged within three days after surgery. Referring to a similar case in Mumbai in 2014, where 232 teeth were extracted from a teenage boy's mouth, Ramani informed, "This is the first such case in the world where 526 teeth were removed from a single site - right lower jaw."

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Seven pathologists and five surgeons were part of the operation that took five hours. According to the hospital, the surgery, which would have cost around Rs 75,000 to Rs one lakh but it was done free of cost under a Tamil Nadu government scheme.

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With inputs from PTI

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