CHENNAI, India: Surgeons from the Regional Institute of Ophthalmology and Government Ophthalmic Hospital in Chennai have reported finding two molars in a recently surgically removed orbital teratoma. It is the first time in medical history that fully developed teeth have been found in such an eye tumour.

Orbital teratomas are very rare, with only few cases described in medical literature. The tumour in Chennai was surgically removed from the left eye of a 23-year-old woman who reported having suffered from the condition throughout her entire life and wished to have it removed for cosmetic reasons.

According to the hospital, her operation took about two hours to complete, after which the surgeons examined the tumour and found the foreign bodies. They believe that the teeth could have developed through the displacement of tissues when the woman was in the embryonic stage and encapsuled after the tumour started to grow in size.

They intend to publish their findings in the Indian Journal of Ophthalmology next.

“It is well known that these tumours may have components from all the three germ layer, such as hair, bone, teeth or dermal appendages, and pose a challenge during surgery,” neurosurgeon Chandrasekaran Kaliaperumal from the Temple Street Children's University Hospital in Dublin, Ireland, told Dental Tribune ONLINE. “I do congratulate the team and the effort taken to remove this tumour. This is a rare case and needs to be reported.”

Kaliaperumal, together with colleagues from the Cork University Hospital's Department of Neurosurgery, recently published a similar case in the British Medical Journal describing the discovery of two encapsulated teeth in a intracranial mature cystic teratoma in the brain of a 16-year-old girl. In their case, however, the removal of the tumour was more difficult to manage since they were adherent to vital brain structures.

Teeth and hair found in a woman’s ovarian tumour were also reported in April by doctors in Birmingham, Ala., in the US.