After a 7-hour operation, doctors in India have extracted 232 teeth from a 17-year-old boy Ashik Gavai‘s mouth.
He was brought in with a swelling in his right jaw, the head of Mumbai’s JJ Hospital’s dental department Dr Sunanda Dhiware tells the BBC.
Ashik had been suffering for a year and 6 months, and travelled to the city from his village after local doctors could not identify the cause of the problem.
His father was worried that it was cancer, so he brought him to the city.
The doctors who helped extract the teeth, called his condition “very rare” and a “world “record”.
Dr Dhiware told reporters that it was a complex composite odontoma where a single gum forms lots of teeth. It’s a sort of benign tumour.
“At first, we couldn’t cut it out so we had to use the basic chisel and hammer to take it out.
Once we opened it, little pearl-like teeth started coming out, one-by-one. Initially, we were collecting them, they were really like small white pearls. But then we started to get tired. We counted 232 teeth.
According to medical literature available on the condition, it is known to affect the upper jaw and a maximum of 37 teeth have been extracted from the tumour in the past. But in Ashik’s case, the tumour was found deep in the lower jaw and it had hundreds of teeth.” Dr Dhiware said.
The surgery conducted on Monday involved two surgeons and two assistants, and was led by Dr Vandana Thorawade.
Ashik now has 28 teeth.
Photo and news: BBC
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