How does teratoma form

Teratomas may have no symptoms at first. When symptoms develop, they can be different depending on where the teratoma is located.

The most common locations for teratomas are the tailbone coccyx , ovaries, and testicles. A sacrococcygeal teratoma SCT is one that develops in the coccyx or tailbone. It occurs in about 1 in every 35, to 40, infants. These teratoma can grow outside or inside the body in the tailbone area.

Aside from a visible mass, symptoms include:. In one study of patients treated for SCTs at a Thailand hospital from to , the female to male ratio was 4 to 1. A symptom of ovarian teratoma is intense pain in the pelvis or abdomen. This comes from a twisting pressure on the ovary ovarian torsion caused by the growing mass. Sometimes ovarian teratoma can be accompanied by a rare condition known as NMDA encephalitis.

This can produce intense headaches and psychiatric symptoms including confusion and psychosis. The main symptom of testicular teratoma is a lump or swelling in the testicle. But it may show no symptoms. Some of these primitive germ cells become your sperm- and egg-producing cells. But germ cells can also be found elsewhere in the body, especially in the region of the tailbone and the mediastinum a membrane separating the lungs. Germ cells are a type of cell known as pluripotent.

That means they are capable of differentiating into any type of specialized cell that can be found in your body. One theory of teratomas suggests that the condition originates in these primordial germ cells. This is called the parthenogenic theory and is now the prevailing view. It explains how teratomas can be found with hair, wax, teeth, and can even appear as an almost-formed fetus.

The location of teratomas also argues for their origin in primitive germ cells. In about 1 in , people, a very rare type of teratoma can appear, called fetus in fetu fetus within a fetus.

This teratoma can have the appearance of a malformed fetus. But without the support of a placenta and an amniotic sac, the undeveloped fetus has no chance of development. One theory explains the fetus in fetu teratoma as the remains of a twin that was unable to develop in the womb, and was encompassed by the body of the surviving child.

An opposing theory explains the fetus in fetu as merely a more developed dermoid cyst. But the high level of development favors the twin theory. Fetus in fetu only develops in twins who both:. The fetus in fetu teratoma is most often detected in infancy. It can occur in children of either sex. In 90 percent of cases these teratomas are found before the child reaches 18 months of age. Most fetus in fetu teratomas lack a brain structure. But 91 percent have a spinal column, and Teratomas also happen to act like misbehaving stem cells.

Not only did her egg cell divide, those new cells took on the form of hair follicles and a thin layer of bone covering a brain-like structure resembling a brainstem and cerebellum. Fortunately this patient showed no symptoms of an immune response against her own nervous system. Discovering nerve cells inside a teratoma might not be all that unusual, but finding them arranged in a neurological structure, like in the case of this tumour, is extremely rare. Especially tissue that could carry nervous impulses.

These cysts arise when oocytes begin to develop but at some point become a disorganized assortment of embryonic tissues. While often benign, these tumors can become quite large.

Teratocarcinomas tend to form in the testes , and contain elements of both teratomas and embryonal carcinomas. Embryonal carcinoma EC cells are undifferentiated malignant stem cells that give rise to the different tissue types of the teratocarcinomas. Early research into teratoma and teratocarcinoma tissues led many to believe that they reflected embryogenic processes, and further studies eventually led to the discovery of embryonic stem cells ESCs in mice.

In the late s, experimental embryologist Leroy Stevens began mating mice that had teratomas in an attempt to create a strain that would produce the tumors often enough for research.

Since the tumors were comprised of cells and tissues from multiple areas of the body, Stevens and other researchers began to believe that the tumors had arisen not from an already differentiated cell, but from an undifferentiated, multipotent cell highly resembling an embryonic cell. In Stevens was able to determine that teratomas arise from primordial germ cells. By , embryologist Barry Pierce had discovered that only one cell within each tumor continued to give rise to more cells, while the rest of the cells differentiated and died.

He also used a cloning technique in mice to confirm that teratoma embryonal stem cells are in fact pluripotent. These discoveries were then expanded upon by David Solter and Barbara Knowles , two researchers who discovered the antigens expressed in teratocarcinomas.

The antigen they discovered led two groups of scientists to independently discover mammalian ESCs in When testing the multipotency of human ESCs, researchers inject cells under the skin of lab mice.

Successful injections result in teratomas, confirming the differentiation capacity of the cells. However, research still needs to be done to discover which in vivo environmental factors can control ESC differentiation , so that teratomas do not form in patients. Until researchers can fully control stem cell fate once injected, the possibility of tumor formation will hinder the application of stem cells in regenerative medicine. Teratomas By: Christina Raup. Keywords: Cancer.

Teratomas Teratomas are embryonal tumors that normally arise from germ cells and are typically benign.