Doctors in India extract 232 teeth from boy's mouth

Ashik Gavai had a rare condition causing a single gum to form multiple teeth

Indian dentists display teeth removed after operating on seventeen year old Ashik Gavai at JJ Hospital in Mumbai. (AFP)

Doctors in India have removed 232 teeth from the mouth of a teenage boy, all in a single operation.

Ashik Gavai underwent a seven-hour procedure to extract the teeth at Mumbai’s JJ Hospital's dental department after being taken there for treatment by his father, Suresh Gavai, who told The Mumbai Mirror he was worried swelling in his son's right jaw could have been a cancerous growth.

He visited the city from his local village in the Amravati region after local doctors failed to diagnose the cause of the swelling, which he had been suffering with for 18 months.

"Ashik's malaise was diagnosed as a complex composite odontoma where a single gum forms lots of teeth. It's a sort of benign tumour," Dr Dhiware told the BBC.

The surplus teeth were buried deep within the lower jaw, making them difficult to remove.

"At first, we couldn't cut it out so we had to use the basic chisel and hammer to take it out" explained Dr Dhiware.

"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."

Another surgeon, Dr Vandana Thorawade, said the tumour was so large it could have broken Ashik's jaw. "We had the jaw plates and screws ready in case of emergency. But miraculously, his jaw was intact," she said.

"Had he waited for longer, there were chances that his jaw bone would have been damaged."

The surgery would have cost his family Rs 40,000 (£391) in a private hospital but was covered by the state government's health insurance scheme.

Doctors believe the number of teeth his “very rare” condition caused him to produce is a world record. The team are happy to report that Ashik now has 28 teeth.