A case of multiple hyperdontia has caught the attention of the Brazilian dental professional community and has gone viral not only in that country. It’s about a girl who counted 81 teeth.

The youngest is 11 years old and comes from Brazil. The panoramic image of the oral cavity (X-rays) is circulating on social networks and amazes users.

The girl should have 28 teeth at that age, but the x-ray revealed an impressive number.

Noticias Caracol, citing Vanguardia, reports that 18 of these teeth were milk, 32 permanent and 31 multiple.

It is these last teeth, they refer, that fulfill the condition mentioned above.

What is hyperdontia and why does the girl from Brazil have 81 teeth?

According to Dr. Santos Crespo Dental is hyperdontia “one of the genetically based anomalies that can affect our oral cavity. Normally an adult has 32 teeth and a child who has not made the tooth change about 20″.

When we talk about this anomaly, it means that “they are teeth that should not have grown or that occupy a place that is not theirs.

In 9 cases out of 10, these bits are located in the upper jaw and in the central region, between the canines and incisors. And only 2-3% of the population is affected.”

There are two distinct types of supernumerary teeth, and he explains: supplementary ones, which have a normal size and appearance, and rudimentary ones, which show changes in both shape and size.

This anomaly, Vanguardia describes, is associated with other diseases or syndromes, such as cleft lip or palate, or Gardner’s syndrome, among others, according to a report prepared on this girl’s case by a group of dentists and maxillofacial surgeons . Federal University of Juiz de Fora, a municipality in the Brazilian state of Mina Gerais.

genetic test

To analyze the cause of this dental anomaly, Notife points out, “scientists performed a genetic test on the girl, which revealed that she showed a pericentric inversion of chromosome 9 at p13, q21.”

The cited report states that “chromosomal inversions in humans are increasingly being detected due to the application of chromosome banding techniques that enable their analysis”. Thus it was discovered that inversions of this type occurred in “all chromosome groups”.

“These structural chromosomal abnormalities,” they argue, “can cause infertility, reproductive loss or abnormal offspring.”

tooth puzzle

The case, known through the Twitter account of Somos Cosmos in early April, is being carefully analyzed. “The orthodontic treatment this girl had to undergo would be a “clinical challenge” as not only would a large number of teeth have to be extracted, but also changes in the shape of several teeth would have to be corrected, explains Vanguardia.

To respond to hyperdontia, there is a dedicated team consisting of dental surgeons, orthodontists, periodontists and dental technicians.

They will have to solve what the same specialists describe in their report as a “medical and dental puzzle”, which consists of eliminating pieces that don’t fit and searching for new ones in order to reach an occlusion that returns the patient to “physiological states of normality”. ” provided. and aesthetic satisfaction.” ”.