One for the Record Books
in the news
Odd Case of Teen with 232 Teeth May Set
a Guinness World Record
D
by Tina Cauller
octors in India are preparing to
submit a case that they believe
just might represent a world
record to the committee that compiles
the Guinness Book of World Records – a
17-year old boy who had an astonishing
number of tiny “teeth” removed from a
benign tumor known as a complex composite odontoma.
Ashik Gavai had traveled with his father,
Suresh Gavai, from a small village in the
western Amravati region of the country
for diagnosis of a painful swelling on his
lower right jaw that his parents desperately feared was cancerous. After a number of tests, doctors determined that his
condition required surgery. During the
seven-hour procedure, performed on
July 21 in Jamshedjee Jeejebhoy (JJ)
hospital in Mumbai, the four-person
team of oral surgeons counted more than
232 pearly white tooth-like structures as
they worked to remove a stone-like malformation that originated in a single
molar. The “toothlets” ranged in size
from a small mustard seed to a marble.
Doctors there had never seen an odontoma that contained so many of the
“toothlets” – prior to Ashik’s remarkable
surgery, the most ever recorded was 37.
These abnormal “toothlets” are not considered true teeth because they have no
periodontal ligament or root structure.
are benign and slow-growing, and occur
most often around age 14. They are categorized as either compound or complex,
based on whether they contain mostly
well-organized denticles or mostly disorganized dental tissues. A compound
odontoma usually appears in the anterior maxilla and contains enamel, dentin
and cementum. A complex odontoma
usually appears in the mandible and
presents as a radioopaque area that lacks
morphodifferentiation and is unrecognizable as dental tissue.
The etiology of Ashik’s odontoma is
uncertain, although odontomas are generally thought to be triggered by factors
including local trauma to the tooth germ,
infection, growth pressure, genetic
mutation, or hereditary and developmental influences. Providing none of the
abnormal toothlets were accidentally left
behind during the surgery, Ashik’s symptoms are not expected to return. His jawbone remains intact and doctors expect
it to heal without any deformity.
The surgery would have been prohibitively expensive for the family in a private hospital, but it was covered by the
state government’s health insurance at
the hospital in Mumbai.
Complex composite odontoma was first
described by Broca in 1866. Odontomas
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