What are the typical symptoms of teratoma

Teratomas can occur at any age, from newborns to people aged 80 to 90, but most occur in women of childbearing age around 30. Most tumors are unilateral, with the left and right sides occurring with similar frequency, and bilateral occurrences accounting for 8 to 24 percent. Since the tumor is benign, there are often no special symptoms if there are no complications such as torsion or infection. In order to help everyone learn more about the common sense of teratoma, let's take a look at the symptoms of teratoma.

Typical symptoms of teratoma

Teratomas may present with various clinical symptoms and manifestations due to their different locations, multiple complications, and obvious malignant tendencies:

1. Painless lumps

This is the most common symptom of teratoma, which is mostly round cystic, with clear boundaries, uneven texture, and even palpable bone nodules. Among them, exophytic tumors (tumor [translation]: an abnormal lesion formed by the loss of normal regulation of the growth of a cell in a local tissue at the genetic level under the action of various carcinogenic factors, resulting in its clonal abnormal proliferation.) are common in the midline areas such as the sacrum, occipital, forehead, and nose. Sacrococcygeal teratoma can often be divided into three clinical types according to its location: dominant, recessive, and mixed.

2. Compression and cavity obstruction symptoms

Mediastinal teratomas can often compress the respiratory tract and cause choking, dyspnea, and distended neck veins; retroperitoneal teratomas often cause abdominal pain and can cause intestinal obstruction. Pelvic and sacrococcygeal occult teratomas are often diagnosed due to constipation, dyspnea, and urinary retention.

3. Acute symptoms

Ovarian and testicular teratomas may cause ovarian or testicular torsion and necrosis, manifested by severe pain and corresponding local symptoms; when secondary infection and intracystic bleeding occur in teratomas, the tumor may often increase in size rapidly, with obvious local tenderness, and accompanied by systemic infection or blood loss symptoms such as fever, anemia, and shock; tumors in the retroperitoneum, ovaries, pelvis, sacrococcyx, etc. may also suddenly rupture and cause severe manifestations such as massive bleeding, hemoperitoneum, and shock.

4. Symptoms of tumor malignancy

When malignant teratomas and benign teratomas become malignant, they often show rapid tumor growth and loss of original elasticity. For exophytic tumors, superficial veins may be dilated and congested, and local skin may be infiltrated with increased skin temperature. Lymph node enlargement and lung and bone metastasis symptoms may occur through lymphatic and blood circulation, as well as systemic symptoms such as weight loss, anemia, and tumor fever.

Warm reminder: Women should take regular gynecological examinations. Some units now only organize married women to take gynecological examinations, but in fact all women of childbearing age should take gynecological examinations, especially B-ultrasound examinations, to nip tumors in the bud or in the early stages.