Surgeons' shock after they remove 232 'TEETH' from Indian teenager's mouth

Surgeons in Mumbai have removed an astonishing 232 teeth-like growths from the mouth of a teenager.

Ashik Gavai, 17, sought medical help after suffering swelling on the right side of his lower jaw.

He was referred to the city's JJ Hospital, where doctors found he was suffering from a condition known as complex odontoma.

'We operated on Monday and it took us almost seven hours,' head of dentistry Sunanda Dhivare-Palwankar, told AFP.

'We thought it [would] be simple surgery but once we opened [him up] there were multiple pearl-like teeth inside the jaw bone,' she said.

After removing those the surgeons also found a larger 'marble-like' structure which they struggled to extract.

It eventually had to be 'chiselled out' and remove in fragments, Ms Dhivare-Palwankar added.

The teenager's father, Suresh Gavai, told the Mumbai Mirror newspaper he had feared the swelling was a cancerous growth.

Fortunately the surgeons managed to maintain teenager's jawbone structure, meaning it should heal without any deformities. Once removed, odontomas do not recur.