occurrence of teratomas in children

teratomas are emberyonal neoplasms derived from totipotential cells that contain tissue from at least two and more often three germ layers (ectoderm, enoderm and mesoderm) in the midline or paraxial location from brain to sacrococcygeal region. the primary objective of this study is to determine this rather common newborn and children teratomas in different areas of the body. the secondary objective is studying the incidence and its pathology and comparison of the data with literatures. in this research, 91 involved children in two hospital of the tehran university of medical sciences from 1982 to 1999 has been studied. from 91 children 60 cases were sacrococcygeal teratoma, 14 cases were sacrococcygeal and pelvic (tot...74), 9 cases in ovaries, 3 cases in the retroperitoneum 2 cases oropharyngeal, 2 cases in testis and one case in neck area. from these cases, 71 were neonate, the rest were infant or were more than 2 years old. from the cases 88 underwent surgical treatment, 3 cases died because of surgical complications and 3 cases died before operation. in this study, 84 percent of teratomas were benign and 16 percent were malignant. the comparison of these findings with literature showed little differences.