Baffled dental surgeons removed some 526 teeth from a fleshy sack that had grown inside the mouth of a seven-year-old boy who was living with a rare condition known as “compound composite ondontome.”

The boy had experienced painful swelling in his lower right jaw since the age of three but refused medical care. After another four years, the boy’s parents decided enough was enough and brought him to the Saveetha Dental College and Hospital in Chennai, where an X-ray and CT scan showed hundreds of rudimentary teeth growing inside his mouth.

“We opened up the jaw after administering general anaesthesia and saw a sack inside it. The sack, weighing about 200 grams, was carefully removed and was later found to contain 526 teeth – small, medium and big sized,” P. Senthilnathan, professor of the hospital’s Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery said on Wednesday.

The hospital reported that the boy recovered well and was reportedly back to normal just three days after the five-hour surgery.

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Some of the ‘teeth’ were very tiny particles but still bore the properties of teeth, and all combined prevented some of the boy’s actual teeth from forming. He will require molar implants when he turns 16.

The cause of the rare condition is thought to be genetic but no one knows for sure. In 2014, 232 teeth were reportedly removed from a teen’s mouth in Mumbai.

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