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A 16-year-old boy in India has had a tooth removed from his left eye socket, between the eyelid and the eyebrow. He had noticed a painless swelling for about a month but was only taken to a hospital when two hard, whitish points began poking through. A scan revealed a fully formed canine tooth—an extremely unusual example of an ectopic tooth.

Ectopic teeth are teeth that develop or erupt in the wrong place. Instead of following the usual path to the mouth, they end up somewhere else. They can be normal baby or adult teeth, or sometimes extra teeth known as supernumerary teeth.

Ectopic teeth are most often found in the maxillary sinus—the hollow space behind the cheekbone—but they have also been found in the nasal cavity, palate, chin, jaw joint and eye socket. A review of 61 published cases found that they can go unnoticed for years or cause pain, swelling, headaches or difficulty opening the mouth. A tooth growing inside the nose can lead to a blocked nose, discharge and nosebleeds.

So how does a tooth end up somewhere as strange as an eye socket?

The face develops from several groups of cells and tissues that move and join together in the womb. Tooth development depends on interactions between some of these tissues. If this process goes awry, a tooth can sometimes develop in an abnormal location—even away from the mouth.

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