MORE than 500 teeth were removed by doctors from a little boy’s mouth recently after he started to complain of jaw pain and swelling.

Since the 7-year-old boy’s surgery last month, he now has 21 teeth instead of an unprecedented 526 — many of which were discovered inside a sac embedded in his lower jaw, CNN reports.

Dr. Prathiba Ramani, the head of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology at Saveetha Dental College and Hospital in India, explained to the outlet that his team learned of the boy’s jaw sac filled with “abnormal teeth” after he received X-rays and scans.

Two surgeons were then able to successfully remove the sac from the boy’s jaw before Ramani’s team underwent a lengthy examination process that confirmed he had hundreds of teeth inside of his mouth.

“There were a total of 526 teeth ranging from 0.1 millimeters (.004 inches) to 15 millimeters (0.6 inches). Even the smallest piece had a crown, root and enamel coat indicating it was a tooth,” Ramani told CNN, adding that the process took nearly five hours to complete.

The boy was first admitted to the Chennai hospital in southern India in July. At the time, the boy complained of swelling and pain near his molars and lower right jaw, according to CNN.

Doctors then performed X-rays and scans on his mouth, which helped determine that surgery would be necessary to remove the teeth, especially because it was difficult to tell exactly how many were hidden in the jaw sac.

Dr. P. Senthilnathan, who was one of the surgeons to perform the procedure, explained to CNN that despite the severity of the situation, the surgery was not as invasive as one would think.

“Under general anesthesia, we drilled into the jaw from the top,” Senthilnathan, who is currently the head of the hospital’s Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Department, told the outlet. “We did not break the bone from the sides, meaning reconstruction surgery was not required.”

“The sac was removed. You can think of it as a kind of balloon with small pieces inside,” Senthilnathan added.

After just three days, the little boy was released from the hospital with expectations for a full recovery, according to Ramani.

Doctors believe the boy was suffering from an extremely rare condition called compound composite odontoma, CNN reports. A composite odontoma is when a benign tumor develops in the patient’s mouth and then additional teeth grow within the tumor, according to the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology.  (SD-Agencies) The boy with 526 teeth. SD-Agencies