Sir, as the maxillofacial on-call doctor at Gloucester Royal Hospital, I was asked to assist with the removal of both the upper and lower dentures for a lady who was due for an endoscopy. She had a late presentation for suspected gastric cancer.
The patient had not removed her upper and lower chrome dentures for 15 years! She had irregularly cleaned her teeth with her denture in situ with a toothbrush. During this time she had not needed to attend a dentist, as had no episodes of dental pain, and she explained the dentures had 'attached to her over time'!
I eased the upper denture out and was shocked to see the tenacious lump of calculus lingering on the flange as shown in Figs 1–2 – this is after a good scrub with a toothbrush.
Upper denture with calculus lingering on the flange
The lower was attached to the soft tissue in the floor of the mouth and would have required surgical excision under local anaesthesia, which the patient declined.
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Midwood, I. Prosthodontics: Tenacious lump of calculus. Br Dent J 220, 45 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bdj.2016.39
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bdj.2016.39
