Grossing a Teratoma Specimen

in STEMGeekslast year

The specimen came from a 37 year old woman who presented with right sided abdominal pain. Her right ovary and fallopian tube twisted cutting off the blood supply which killed the organ.

Gross1.jpg

Red Dot: Fallopian Tube
Green Dot: Ovary

I know it's not as recognizable as the one's you might have seen in regular anatomy books but this is the real deal. The strands of hair are features of the tumor. Teratomas can consist of organs from the three germ layers. You can get fat, hair, tooth, nerve tissues, liver and all sorts of organs from these tumors. Despite how ugly these look, it's often benign unless there are parts seen that exhibit an immature tissue most commonly neural tissue. If the cells look like their mature counterparts, then the risk of malignancy is low.

But discussing the medical stuff isn't the purpose of the post. I just want to flex the teeth I got from this specimen, 7 of them. Despite how common the textbooks says tooth are present in these tumors, I often just get a tuft of hair and skin from opening these specimens up. So seeing a lot of teeth was something unusual but it's not rare.

Gross2.jpg

Teratomas are on top of the list of specimens I dislike cutting up because of how messy these things can be on your hand. Even if you wore gloves, the smell of formalin, fat and unknown just lingers. Imagine wearing nitrile gloves and rubbing your hands with maple syrup and butter while holding a piece of raw meat. It's that plus the smell of formalin and flesh.

Gross4.jpg

The specimen came from this container and those yellow stuff are a mixture of keratin, fat, and sebum which contributes to the oily sensation of touching these specimens.

Gross3.jpg

The ovary becomes a cyst and within the cyst is a clump of flesh composed of different organs. In our local lore, tumors like these fantasy based stories of a missing twin living within the woman's body. I encourage some further readings about teratoma from Mr. Google because this post is just for show and tell.

If you're grossed out, thank you for your time.

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 last year  

This is as gross as it comes. I wonder if we could ever harness this type of generative power.

!discovery 37

Yes, artificially calling it cloning but only specifically growing organ tissues and bypassing ethics committee.

 last year  

But for science!

Air fryer science!

 last year  

Gross.

Yeah, probably a perfect way to ruin a kitchen. 

Incredible! So if the body can create teeth in a tumour, why can't it create unlimited numbers of teeth in the mouth?

It can but it's programmed not to by genetic predisposition and it's also the same genetic control where it's possible to have multiple teeth (compound odontoma but worse). If unlimited was the term, it's still possible but you'll be encouraging malignancy right there.

Ahhhh so the body has the ability to do many things but the control comes from the DNA 'coding'. I guess this is why DNA manipulation is such an exciting area of medicine due to the possibilities of 'reprogramming' the DNA to perform 'self-healing' type tasks.

Thanks for the reply and I shall leave you in peace as I google happily and pass the time with 9 hours further to travel on the bus back to Bangkok!

I saw an article how some group of scientist were able to clone an clump of living flesh from an extinct species. Amazing time to be alive.

EDIT: My bad Scientists Are Reincarnating the Woolly Mammoth to Return in 4 Years

It's not happening yet.

Amazing! And thought the Smog Monster (Kaiju) had interesting origins!

Are you vegetarian now?
Is that a genetic deformity? What could cause that in a 37 year old?

Sorry about your hands.

Are you vegetarian now?

No
It's just a tumor that happens sporadically like most unusual tumors.

Gnarly!


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