Indian boy has 526 teeth removed
August 2, 2019
A 7-year-old boy in India has had 526 teeth extracted in an operation that has been described as the first of its kind in the world.
The hospital in the coastal city of Chennai, which conducted X-rays of the boy's mouth, found a sac embedded in his lower right jaw full of abnormal teeth, showing he was suffering from a compound odontoma.
"A total of 526 teeth, ranging from 0.1 millimeters to 15 millimeters were removed by our team," Dr. Prathibha Ramani, the college head of maxillofacial pathology, told The Times of India.
"All the pieces were teeth, since they had a crown, root and enamel," he said. "It was reminiscent of pearls in an oyster."
Read more: What our teeth reveal about us
'No pain'
The teeth that were removed weighed a total of 200 grams.
The boy was left with a "healthy" count of 21 teeth and discharged three days after the five-hour procedure. "This Pandora box of miniature teeth is a jewel on our crown," the hospital proclaimed.
As he left the hospital, the boy climbed into to his father's arms and said with a grin: "No pain."
Hospital founder and chancellor N M Veeraiyan said the operation had been done free of charge.
In 2014, a government hospital in Mumbai took out 232 teeth from a teenager.