Saudi Arabia: Doctors Discover 'Extra' Tooth Growing in Man's Nose

A Saudi Arabian man who frequently suffered nosebleeds has been given a rather unusual diagnosis of an extra tooth growing in his nose.

The 22-year-old man experienced a nosebleed once or twice a month for around three years, before he consulted a doctor.

Upon examination, a white bone-like mass measuring around half an inch in length was discovered in his nostril. The doctor consulted a group of dentists, who confirmed that the find was actually a tooth, according to a report in the American Journal of Case Reports.

The discovery suggests the man was suffering from hyperdontia, a condition which causes teeth to grow in areas other than the mouth. Teeth can appear in any area of the dental arch and can affect any dental organ.

The man's medical records stated he had an ordinary and complete set of teeth in his mouth. The extra nasal tooth was removed while the man was under general anaesthetic, after which the patient healed and stopped suffering nosebleeds around three months later.

The extra tooth was a mesioden, a small supernumerary tooth normally found between the central incisors.

Dr John Hellstein, a dentist and professor of oral pathology at the University of Iowa, who wasn't directly involved in the case, told Live Science: "About a third of those [cases of hyperdontia] actually develop upside down, and they can get rerouted upward, towards the nose."

However, it is very rare that a tooth actually grow inside the nasal cavity.

"It's an unusual case of an extra tooth — certainly, the most impressive intranasal photo I think I've ever seen of one. I've never seen the tooth actually in there," Dr Hellstein continued.

"We see several cases each year. But for it to have erupted up and through the nasal floor - that's unusual."

Last month, Indian doctors extracted 232 teeth from the mouth of a 17-year-old boy during an operation which took seven hours.

Ashik Gavai had been suffering problems for over a year and travelled to Mumbai when local doctos could not identify the cause of his discomfort.

Dr Sunanda Dhiware, head of Mumbai's JJ Hospital's dental department, told the BBC: "Little pearl-like teeth started coming out, one-by-one. Initially, we were collecting them, they were really like small white pearls. But then we started to get tired. We counted 232 teeth."