Name «Teratoma» translated from Greek as «Tumor-monster» And not in vain. Well, isn't it monstrous, feeling pain at the bottom of the abdomen, consult a doctor and discover in the ovary of lymphatic fabric, hair or even worse - teeth. And this is all she - teratom.
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Such an anomaly of the development of tissues leads to the fact that the tumor contains the primitives of several organs uncharacteristic for this anatomical region. For example, a ovarian teratom may contain a lymphatic or muscle tissue adjacent to the hair follicles or teeth. Thus, with a surgical removal of such a tumor, its appearance can be extremely unexpected, which, obviously and served as a reason for the name of the tumor.
The tumor is considered benign, however, in 1% of cases, it is possible its discharge with progressive germination to the surrounding tissues.
The cause of development by teratom is the chromosomal anomaly of its cells. By type of this anomaly and distinguish «mature» and «immature» Teratoma. The difference between them is the degree of differentiation of tissues that make up the tumor: if the tumor includes elements of a normal, characteristic of an adult person, tissues (muscular, nervous, adult, connective), then they speak of a mature teratom, if you define the type of fabric in the tumor impossible, then we are talking about immature teratom.
Mature and immature teratomas, except for appearance and chromosomal set, may have different growth characteristics. So, the mature terators of the ovaries in women have a benign current, while the testicles of men are malignant. The malignantness of the teratoma of the egg is manifested in the more aggressive growth of the tumor with the destruction of the body, the development of bleeding and entering the blood of hormones and the antigens of the egg, which can lead to a death rate for the patient.
According to the structure of teratomas, they are also divided into dense and cyst-teratomas. The latter, along with the incarnations of tissues, contain liquid masses.
In adult teratomas, for a long time, there may be dumb and the beginning of their manifestations is usually associated with the symptoms of the compression or displacement of the organ from which theratoma is growing. For example, in the teratom of the ovaries, the ovarian ligaments are possible, which leads to the appearance of pain in the pelvis. With the teratom of lungs and the mediastinum, symptoms of shortness of shortness of shortness of breath and pain, and egg tumor - the appearance of volumetric education in the scrotum.
Given the possibility of maligning the tumor (turning it into malignant), conduct a revision of regional lymph nodes to eliminate metastasis. Usually teratomas secrete biological active substances (alpha-fetoprotein, beta-chorionic gonadotropin), the presence of which in elevated concentrations in the blood is an indicator of the tumor activity.
Thus, the determination of these substances make it possible to estimate the rate of tumor growth, the presence of metastasis and the effectiveness of the treatment.
