Teeth grow in our mouth, right? Anyone with a brain can guess that much is true, but what happens when teeth grow in odd and even weird places? What causes teeth to grow in other places besides the mouth? Typically the answer to this question is teeth that grow outside the mouth are found in tumors known as Teratomas. The term Teratomas comes from the Greek work teras which means “monster.”

What are some places that come to mind when you think of odd or weird places for teeth to grow? Maybe your first thought is about that kid in your high school that had “shark teeth.” You know the kind where he has two full rows of teeth on the top or on the bottom or both, giving him a total of 4 rows of teeth.  What about teeth growing from the outside of the cheek, or the ear or how about the actual eyeball? Pretty strange things the human body is capable of, right? It is no secret that the human body is amazing and miraculous.

What about in the brain? There has actually been a case recently where a four month old baby who was suffering from a brain tumor, when the medical professionals went in to remove the tumor they found teeth growing from the baby’s brain. The removed the random teeth and the tumor, and the baby is healing nicely as of today.

Finding teeth growing outside the mouth are actually a great find for scientists and medical professionals, it shows that the human embryonic stem cells, which give the body and scientists the ability to grow new organs, cells, nerves, basically anything the human body grows initially in the womb, with stem cells it can be regrown. When a tumor is forming it is said that those stem cells are the cause of teeth growing inside the tumor, and in weird places on the body.

It may be weird, it may be odd but either way you look at it the ability of the human body to grow teeth in the brain or an eyeball is pretty cool.