Cargando…

Teratoma occupying the left hemithorax

BACKGROUND: Teratomas are manifested with a great variety of clinical and radiological features, while sometimes they simply represent incidental findings. CASE PRESENTATION: A rare case of benign teratoma of the dermoid cyst type, in an adult 40-year-old female patient, is reported. The patient had...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Zisis, Charalambos, Rontogianni, Dimitra, Stratakos, Grigorios, Voutetakis, Konstantinos, Skevis, Konstantinos, Argiriou, Mihalis, Bellenis, Ion
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2005
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1308873/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16303056
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1477-7819-3-76
_version_ 1782126300654206976
author Zisis, Charalambos
Rontogianni, Dimitra
Stratakos, Grigorios
Voutetakis, Konstantinos
Skevis, Konstantinos
Argiriou, Mihalis
Bellenis, Ion
author_facet Zisis, Charalambos
Rontogianni, Dimitra
Stratakos, Grigorios
Voutetakis, Konstantinos
Skevis, Konstantinos
Argiriou, Mihalis
Bellenis, Ion
author_sort Zisis, Charalambos
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Teratomas are manifested with a great variety of clinical and radiological features, while sometimes they simply represent incidental findings. CASE PRESENTATION: A rare case of benign teratoma of the dermoid cyst type, in an adult 40-year-old female patient, is reported. The patient had presented recurrent pulmonary infections for the previous 2 months, persistent cough, and progressively aggravating dyspnea. A chest X-ray showed total atelectasis of the left lung, and the thoracic CT-scan revealed a huge mass, containing multiple elements of heterogeneous density, probably originating from the mediastinum, occupying the whole left hemithorax. The mass compressed the vital structures of the mediastinum, great vessels and airways, and a chest MRI was performed to accurately detect the anatomical relations. The patient underwent left thoracotomy and the tumor was totally resected. The size of the tumor was extremely large although no invasion to the vessels or to the airway had occurred. Adherence to the adjacent left pulmonary artery and left main bronchus was present, but without erosion or fistulization. The postoperative course was uneventful, while the histological examination confirmed a teratoma. CONCLUSION: A teratoma is a non-homogeneous pathological entity, clinically, radiologically or histologically. It is predominantly diagnosed between the second and fourth decade and the incidence is equal for both sexes. Symptoms are absent in one half of the patients. The case reported is noteworthy as the tumor appeared with total atelectasis of the left lung, and symptoms started 2 months prior to diagnosis. Total removal of the tumor is adequate treatment for this type of teratoma and the prognosis is excellent.
format Text
id pubmed-1308873
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2005
publisher BioMed Central
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-13088732005-12-08 Teratoma occupying the left hemithorax Zisis, Charalambos Rontogianni, Dimitra Stratakos, Grigorios Voutetakis, Konstantinos Skevis, Konstantinos Argiriou, Mihalis Bellenis, Ion World J Surg Oncol Case Report BACKGROUND: Teratomas are manifested with a great variety of clinical and radiological features, while sometimes they simply represent incidental findings. CASE PRESENTATION: A rare case of benign teratoma of the dermoid cyst type, in an adult 40-year-old female patient, is reported. The patient had presented recurrent pulmonary infections for the previous 2 months, persistent cough, and progressively aggravating dyspnea. A chest X-ray showed total atelectasis of the left lung, and the thoracic CT-scan revealed a huge mass, containing multiple elements of heterogeneous density, probably originating from the mediastinum, occupying the whole left hemithorax. The mass compressed the vital structures of the mediastinum, great vessels and airways, and a chest MRI was performed to accurately detect the anatomical relations. The patient underwent left thoracotomy and the tumor was totally resected. The size of the tumor was extremely large although no invasion to the vessels or to the airway had occurred. Adherence to the adjacent left pulmonary artery and left main bronchus was present, but without erosion or fistulization. The postoperative course was uneventful, while the histological examination confirmed a teratoma. CONCLUSION: A teratoma is a non-homogeneous pathological entity, clinically, radiologically or histologically. It is predominantly diagnosed between the second and fourth decade and the incidence is equal for both sexes. Symptoms are absent in one half of the patients. The case reported is noteworthy as the tumor appeared with total atelectasis of the left lung, and symptoms started 2 months prior to diagnosis. Total removal of the tumor is adequate treatment for this type of teratoma and the prognosis is excellent. BioMed Central 2005-11-22 /pmc/articles/PMC1308873/ /pubmed/16303056 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1477-7819-3-76 Text en Copyright © 2005 Zisis et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Case Report
Zisis, Charalambos
Rontogianni, Dimitra
Stratakos, Grigorios
Voutetakis, Konstantinos
Skevis, Konstantinos
Argiriou, Mihalis
Bellenis, Ion
Teratoma occupying the left hemithorax
title Teratoma occupying the left hemithorax
title_full Teratoma occupying the left hemithorax
title_fullStr Teratoma occupying the left hemithorax
title_full_unstemmed Teratoma occupying the left hemithorax
title_short Teratoma occupying the left hemithorax
title_sort teratoma occupying the left hemithorax
topic Case Report
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1308873/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16303056
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1477-7819-3-76
work_keys_str_mv AT zisischaralambos teratomaoccupyingthelefthemithorax
AT rontogiannidimitra teratomaoccupyingthelefthemithorax
AT stratakosgrigorios teratomaoccupyingthelefthemithorax
AT voutetakiskonstantinos teratomaoccupyingthelefthemithorax
AT skeviskonstantinos teratomaoccupyingthelefthemithorax
AT argirioumihalis teratomaoccupyingthelefthemithorax
AT bellenision teratomaoccupyingthelefthemithorax