Immature Mediastinal Teratoma - A Cause of Recurrent Respiratory Distress

The word Teratoma is derived from Greek words "terato” meaning monster and “onkoma” meaning swelling. A teratoma is a germ cell tumour derived from pluripotent cells and is made up of elements of different types of tissues from one or more of the three germ cell layers. The world wide incidence of teratoma is about 1 in 4000 live births (Shetty et al, 2000). Frequencies of the most common sites are sacrococcygeal (40%), ovary (25%), testicle (12%), brain (5%) and others including neck and mediastinum (18%). Thoracic masses arising from the mediastinum are a common diagnostic difficulty in the paediatric age group. These masses represent a wide variety of histological morphologies and require many different forms of surgical & non ? surgical treatment. The choice of appropriate operative procedure depends on patient’s age, tumour size, location, expansion, co-existent morbidity and cardiorespiratory reserve, Surgeon’s experience gives a favourable outcome and long term prognosis (Zisis et al, 2005). Children especially those with benign tumours have very high survival rate after surgical resection (Grosfeld et al, 1994). Herein, we report a case of an infant who was diagnosed and treated for benign mediastinal teratoma with emphasis on its clinical presentation.