Man's Blocked Nose Turned Out To Be A Growing Tooth

A 38-year-old male patient complaining of difficulty breathing through his right nostril for several years was found to have a tooth growing in his nose.

Physicians described this rare case in their paper published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Reports of body parts growing in places where they normally do not grow are extremely rare. This type of growth commonly involves teeth and, in most cases, the canine tooth is involved. It grows in the wrong direction in the upper jaw.

‘A misplaced tooth inside the nasal cavity may be missed or misdiagnosed as allergies, chronic sinusitis, or a variety of other conditions.’

In this new case, the doctors first found a deviated nasal septum along with calcified spurs. After taking a closer look through a camera introduced into a nostril, the doctors found what they described as a white object protruding from the wall of the right nostril.

The doctors then opted to X-ray the object and the area around it. The images showed that as a tooth that had grown upward from the jaw rather than down into the mouth, as is the usual case.

Later, they suggested surgery and the patient agreed. The tooth was extracted with no complications. The patient came back later for a follow-up and doctors found the wound had healed properly.

There was no evidence of infection or new tooth growth. The patient also reported being able to breathe freely once again.

People with deranged body parts need to see their doctor, not doing so can result in damage to surrounding tissues.

Ectopic teeth can push other teeth out of the way, leading to crooked teeth or gaps. Also, there have been instances of cysts forming on or near such body parts, which can grow to become painful.

But the doctors also note that ectopic teeth are extremely rare, occurring in just 0.1% of all people and it is even rarer for an ectopic tooth to grow all the way up into the nasal cavity or the nose itself.



Source: Medindia