Growing Teratoma Syndrome following immature teratoma Stage 1A--a rare clinical entity

Immature teratoma of the ovary is a rare malignant germ cell tumor (GCT) which occurs predominantly in children and adolescents and represents < 10% of all ovarian tumors. The management of immature teratoma is conservative surgery followed by combination chemotherapy in cases with FIGO stage > I or grade >1. One interesting aspect of follow up after therapy of germ cell tumors especially immature teratoma has been the description of Growing Teratoma Syndrome (GTS). GTS is an extremely rare complication of nondysgerminomatous malignant germ cell tumors characterized by enlarging masses of differentiated teratoma during or after chemotherapy in patients with GCT, associated with normalization of tumor markers. Only 47 cases of GTS following ovarian GCT have been reported so far. Here we discuss a case of GTS in a 22-year-old girl who had underwent conservative surgery for stage IA Ovarian Immature Teratoma followed by chemotherapy 3 years back. Management of case is presented along with review of literature of Growing Teratoma Syndrome. Keywords: Growing Teratoma Syndrome | Germ cell tumor | ovarian tumor | immature teratoma
Introduction Growing Teratoma Syndrome(GTS) is an extremely rare metastatic complication of malignant germ cell tumor, described for the first time in Nonseminomatous Germ Cell Tumor(NSGCT) of testis (1), characterized by [...]