A few weeks ago a man went to a specialist clinic complaining of long-standing discomfort inside his right nostril . A rhinoscopy and CT scan finally revealed the presence of an inverted ectopic tooth in the nasal cavity.
Ectopic teeth are rare, but it's even rarer to have one in your nose. The case study has just been published in the New England Journal of Medicine. According to the report, a 38-year-old man had visited the ear, nose and throat (ENT) department at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City complaining of difficulty breathing through his right nostril. According to the patient, these problems had lasted for several years.
The physical examination would then have revealed a deviated septum (the cartilage in the middle that separates one nostril from the other), as well as a bony obstruction and a tear of two centimeters long towards the back of the septum. How to explain it? Looking a little closer through a fiberscope (flexible tube made of fiber optics that allows you to see from a distance), the doctors then isolated the culprit:a "hard white mass" protruding from the floor of the nostril.
A CT scan later confirmed that it was indeed an ectopic tooth. In anatomy, it is a somewhat catch-all term intended to highlight the abnormal placement of a part of the body.
Concerning the teeth, these pathologies concern between 0.1% to 1% of the population only . However, as a rule, the affected teeth grow relatively close to their usual location. And indeed, they are not hard to miss. So far, only a few cases like this have been reported by doctors.
Doctors don't detail how this misplaced tooth got may well have formed, but they point out that genetics is often considered a risk factor .
Note that ectopic teeth are not systematically treated. Indeed, some may develop normally after defying "anatomical guidelines". Depending on their position, they can also be adjusted using orthodontic appliances. Here, the doctors finally opted for surgical removal . The tooth was fourteen millimeters long. Since then, man can finally breathe normally.
