Doctors find 526 teeth in mouth of seven-year-old boy

Doctors have pulled out 526 teeth from a seven-year-old boy's mouth in a world first after he complained that his mouth hurt.

The boy called Ravindran, who only goes by one name, was admitted to a private hospital after suffering severe pain and swelling in his jaw.

His parents, dad Parbhu, 40, and mum Rajakumari, 33, feared that he had cancer in his jaw when they took him to Saveetha Dental College in Chennai in southern India.

But medics were stunned after they performed a CT Scan and X-ray and found a large lesion in the boy's mouth that was filled with hundreds of teeth.

Doctors further noticed a well-defined five-inch bag like mass which was removed in entirety. A surgery was soon performed to remove the sac.

It took doctors five-long hours of meticulous searching to remove all the minute teeth from the opened bag-like specimen.

Pathologists at the hospital called the sac "reminiscent of pearls in an oyster”.

[Ravindran and his dad Parbhu (light blue shirt), 40, and mum Rajakumari (in yellow) with doctors] (Image: Caters News Agency)

According to the doctors, this is the first ever case documented in the world in which in an individual has been found to have so many minute teeth.

The child had been suffering for the last four years but was left undiagnosed.

"His parents had taken him to doctor but the investigation couldn’t be done because the boy didn’t cooperate with the doctors.

Professor P Senthilnathan, from the hospital's Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, said: "The parents first noticed the swelling when the boy was three years old.

“But they didn't bother much as the swelling wasn't much then and the boy did not cooperate with investigative procedures either.

“Later as swelling increased, the parents brought the boy to our hospital.

"We opened up the jaw after administering general anaesthesia and saw a bag, or sac, inside it.

“The sac, weighing about 200 grams, was carefully removed and was later found to contain 526 teeth - small, medium and large."

Though some were very tiny particles, the doctors said, they had the properties of teeth.

The boy's father, a farmer, said: "I thought it was cancer.

"The size of the lump was 5cm and weighed over 100 grams.

"I thought he has cancer. I did not know about it and doctors at Saveetha told me they can only tell after investigation.

"At age of three, I took him to government hospital but he did not get any proper treatment and counselling since he was small kid so we left at that.

"I am very happy now that my child is fine. I am relieved. He is eating happily and leading a normal life."