If your child complains that his stomach hurts, don’t take it seriously. Some serious illnesses are beyond your imagination.
10-year-old Xing Xing has been complaining of stomachache recently. When he went to the hospital for examination, it turned out that he had a large teratoma growing in his ovary. The doctor said that Xingxing's ovary was twisted 720 degrees, and he underwent emergency surgery on the night of admission. The ovary turned purple-black, and there was a 7-centimeter tumor hidden inside. Doctor: Teratomas are common in young girls and are mostly congenital.
I can only say that fortunately the parents discovered it early and wish the child a speedy recovery! Well, Little Xingxing’s incident can be regarded as a warning shot for many parents. Today, let’s follow the editor to understand what teratoma is!
What is teratoma? Is ovarian teratoma also a cancer?
Teratoma is a common type of ovarian germ cell tumor, which is divided into mature teratoma (i.e., benign teratoma) and immature teratoma ( malignant teratoma ). Benign teratomas contain many components, including skin, hair, teeth, bones, grease, neural tissue, etc. Malignant teratomas are poorly differentiated, have no or little formed tissue, and have unclear structures. Most early-stage teratomas have no obvious clinical symptoms and are mostly discovered accidentally during physical examination. Larger teratomas may cause distension and dull pain in the lower abdomen. If torsion or necrosis occurs, severe pain in the lower abdomen will occur.
The vast majority of teratomas are benign. If the tumor is very small, below 2 to 3 centimeters, it can be temporarily observed and B-ultrasound examination done regularly. If there is a tendency to increase, surgery should be performed to avoid the gradual increase of the tumor. Compresses surrounding ovarian tissue, affecting ovarian function and causing teratoma complications, such as pedicle torsion, necrosis, rupture, secondary infection, etc. If it is more than 3 cm, early surgical treatment is required. Benign teratomas have less impact on pelvic organs, less bleeding, and faster recovery after surgery. During the surgery, the doctor will completely remove the tumor to prevent tumor tissue from remaining or causing recurrence.
How to treat ovarian teratoma?
1. Treatment principles
Treatment principles for immature ovarian teratoma: Surgical principle: adopt fertility-preserving surgery; after surgery, take effective combination chemotherapy as early as possible. For recurrent tumors, the malignancy of the immature teratoma should be based on the degree of malignancy of the immature teratoma. According to the law of reversal, different specific plans can be formulated based on different specific situations.
2. Surgical treatment
① Scope of surgery The vast majority of tumors are unilateral, and the patients are often very young. Most people advocate unilateral appendix resection to preserve fertility. If the patient has no desire to have children and the tumor is stage II or III, bilateral adnexal and hysterectomy can be performed. The omentum is a common site of metastasis. Regardless of the tumor stage, omentum resection is performed sooner or later. There is no consensus on whether retroperitoneal lymph nodes should be routinely removed. For patients with extensive intraperitoneal implantation and metastasis, tumor cytoreduction should be performed as much as possible to achieve a basically clean removal of the tumor. ② Surgical treatment of recurrent tumors Recurrent tumors of immature teratoma are still mainly surgical resection, supplemented by effective combination chemotherapy. ③ Secondary exploratory surgery is currently not recommended.
3. Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy is an indispensable treatment method for immature ovarian teratoma. After the initial surgery, early use of combined chemotherapy can prevent recurrence and improve the survival rate.
The medical opinions of this article come from Wang Qing, chief physician of the Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Gynecology of China-Japan Friendship Hospital!
