Review of Laparoscopic Management of Mature Cystic Teratoma of Ovaries in Children

Ovarian cystic mature teratomas (OCMTs) are the most frequent ovarian tumors in childhood. This review aimed to determine the feasibility and safety of laparoscopic management of OCMT. Literature was searched for terms “mature,” “ovarian,” “teratomas,” and “laparoscopy.” Primary endpoints were age at surgery, laparoscopic and surgical technique, intraoperative complications, postoperative morbidity, and associated pathology. Literature search revealed 11 articles published between 1998 and 2014 that met the inclusion criteria. There were 105 (n = 95 unilateral; n = 10 bilateral) patients for this analysis, with mean age at surgery being 13 years. Four laparoscopic approaches were opted: gasless transumbilical laparoendoscopic single-site (LESS) surgery (n = 19), gasless multiport surgery (n = 24), single-incision laparoscopic surgery (SILS) (n = 3), and pneumoperitoneum multiport laparoscopy (n = 59). The 10 patients with bilateral OCMT underwent ovary-sparing surgery: LESS-assisted extracorporeal bilateral cystectomy in which tumors were punctured by a balloon catheter (n = 2), intracorporeal cystectomy for gasless multiport laparoscopy (n = 5) with use of endobags to prevent spillage, and transperitoneal multiport laparoscopy (n = 3). OCMT was associated with ipsilateral and unilateral ovarian torsion in five and bilateral ovarian torsion in one patient with bilateral OCMT. In four patients with unilateral OCMT, salpingo-oophorectomy was performed. Intraoperative complications were laceration of utero-ovarian ligament and bladder injury during a suprapubic port placement. The mean follow-up was 31.9 months. Patients with unilateral or bilateral OCMT can be offered ovarian-sparing surgery laparoscopically with one of the following techniques: LESS, SILS or multiport laparoscopy with pneumoperitoneal or gasless. Long-term follow-up of these techniques has shown no recurrence with low postoperative morbidity and low intraoperative complications.