Chennai: Doctors extract 526 teeth from 7-year-old

CHENNAI: In a first of its kind surgery, a team of oral surgeons and oral pathologists at Saveetha dental college and hospital removed as many as 526 teeth from 7-year-old boy Ravindranath. This was the first-ever case worldwide where these many teeth were retrieved from a single individual.

The rare condition termed as 'compound composite odontome' can be caused by several factors — the major ones being genetic anomalies and radiation side effects, doctors said.

Ravindranath's parents first noted a swelling in his right lower jaw when he was just three years old.  His father, S. Prabhudas, a sales executive in a private firm, said, "We rushed him to a government hospital back then, but as he was very young he was not  cooperative for the tests." However, the swelling kept increasing in size which finally prompted the parents to visit Saveetha dental hospital. The child also had no permanent teeth on the swelled up portion of his mouth.

Doctors performed a CT scan which revealed multiple teeth pushing his permanent teeth down. Orthopaedic surgery was performed subsequently on July 11. The complex surgery took about one and a half hours to complete, said doctors. The team removed a well-defined bag like mass, weighing about 200 grams and measuring 4x3.5 cm from his lower jaw. Further radiographic tests showed that the bag like mass contained 526 teeth of various sizes, which took the doctors around five hours to remove.

The surgery was performed by a team of doctors, including Dr Pratibha Ramani, professor and head of the department of oral and maxillofacial surgery and Dr.Senthilnathan, Professor department of oral and maxillofacial surgery.

Addressing the media, Dr.Senthilnathan said," Patient's awareness on the importance of oral health and reporting to oral and maxillofacial centres at the earliest is extremely important. In this case, the patient's parents noticed a swelling in his lower jaw when he was just three years old and had rushed him to a government hospital." He added that timely diagnosis and treatment played a crucial role in the success of this surgery.

"This rare condition might be attributed to numerous factors. While genetics might have played a part in this, we cannot completely overrule the role of environmental hazards such as mobile radiations in causing this abnormal growth", said Dr Pratibha Ramani.