A Teenager in India Has Had 232 Teeth Removed from his Mouth in a 7-Hour Record-Breaking Operation

A teenager in India has had 232 teeth removed from his mouth in what could be a record-breaking operation.

Surgeons in Mumbai operated on Ashik Gavai after the 17-year-old sought help for a swelling on the right side of his lower jaw.

The hospital found he was suffering from a condition known as complex odontoma.

"We operated on Monday and it took us almost seven hours,"  the hospital's head of dentistry, Dr Sunanda Dhivare-Palwankar, said.

"We thought it may be a simple surgery but once we opened it there were multiple pearl-like teeth inside the jaw bone."

After removing those, they then found a larger "marble-like" structure that was so hard to remove that the dentists eventually had to "chisel it out" and take it out in fragments.

Most adults have 32 teeth. 

The teenager's father, Suresh Gavai, said the family had been worried their boy's swelling was a cancerous growth.

"I was worried that it may turn out to be cancer so I brought him to Mumbai," Mr Gavai told the Mumbai Mirror newspaper.

Dr Dhivare-Palwankar said literature they had come across on the condition referred to a maximum of 37 teeth removed in such a procedure - far less than she and her team had taken out.

"I think it could be a world record," she said.

Gavai's jaw bone structure was fixed during the operation so that it was likely to heal without deformity, the surgeon added.

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