Morphometric Analysis and Characterization of Teeth Extracted from Mature Cystic Teratoma of the Ovary

Mature cystic teratomas are a form of ovarian germ cell tumor and often called ‘dermoid cysts’ because they are mostly cystic. Many teratomas have teeth with morphologically identifiable crowns and roots. The objective of this study was to carry out morphometric measurements of teratomatous teeth extracted from a mature cystic teratoma excised from a 28-year-old female patient. The extracted teeth were stored in normal saline till they were subjected to morphometric analysis. All measurements were done using digital calipers (Derby, France), repeated twice and the average was recorded. The teeth were labeled as teratomatous tooth 1 (TT1), teratomatous tooth 2 (TT2) and teratomatous tooth 3 (TT3). The gross morphology of TT1 resembled a maxillary deciduous canine whereas TT2 and TT3 resembled a deciduous incisor and a mesioden respectively. The teratomatous broadly resembled normal intraoral teeth. With all of them primarily resembling maxillary deciduous teeth it would not be out of place to postulate that the displaced embryonic tissue leading to the formation of these was from the upper front region of the stomodeum.