Paraparesis and pleural effusion in a young patient: A road less travelled
Abstract
Intrapulmonary teratoma is a rare tumor of the lung, which is scarcely reported to have metastasis at presentation. Here, we report a case of a 14-year-old patient admitted with paraparesis and heaviness of the right side of the chest and was found to have compressive myelopathy along with pleural effusion. He had elevated alpha fetoprotein and beta human chorionic gonadotropin. Imaging revealed a heterogeneous, massive space lesion occupying the right hemithorax and collapse of D12 vertebra with altered marrow signal causing extradural spinal compression. Cytopathology from the tumor revealed immature teratoma cells. The patient was diagnosed as a case of intrapulmonary teratoma with vertebral metastasis. He was started on bleomycin, etoposide, cyclophosphamide chemotherapy and spinal irradiation, which was unsuccessful.
Authors: Kaushik Ghosh, Susmita Ghosh, Rajdip Hazra, Sanat Kumar Jatua, Sisir Chakraborty, Atri Chatterjee
Published in: Sub-Saharan African Journal of Medicine (2014)