Doctors remove baby's brain tumor that contained teeth

[SonOfTheGods]

Johns Hopkins doctors remove baby's brain tumor that contained teeth

http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/bs-hs-tumor-teeth-20140228,0,7700935.story

 

• 1
• 2

 

PHOTO HERE:

http://www.trbimg.com/img-53112815/turbine/bs-bs-hs-tumor-teeth-jpg-20140228/600

 

A rare tumor (left) found in a baby’s brain contained several teeth (right). (New England Journal of Medicine, Baltimore Sun / February 27, 2014)

 

By Andrea K. Walker, The Baltimore Sun

6:19 p.m. CST, February 28, 2014

 

Doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital have removed a rare tumor that contained several fully grown teeth from a baby boy's brain.

The tumor was found in the then-4-month-old from West Virginia in 2012 after a pediatrician noticed that his head was unusually large for his age.

 

Doctors wrote about the findings in an article that appeared this week in the New England Journal of Medicine. The discovery could someday help researchers trying to cure diseases or grow new organs, medical experts said.

 

"It gives us more insight into the origins of the tumor," said Dr. Edward Ahn, a pediatric neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins who was the lead surgeon in the case.

The tumor found in the child was a craniopharyngioma, a rare mass found mostly in young children that can press up against the pituitary gland and optic nerve and cause pressure in the brain, according to the National Institutes of Health.

 

Only five other cases in medical literature found teeth in these types of tumors, Ahn said.

Teeth are more commonly found in another kind of tumor, teratomas. Doctors have found many bodily structures, including fingers and even partially formed humans, in teratomas because their cells have the ability to form any kind of cell type or organ system within the tumor mass, said Dr. James T. Rutka, a pediatric neurosurgeon and chair of the University of Toronto's department of surgery who was not involved in the Maryland case.

 

"If they are absolutely certain this is a craniopharyngioma, it would be way less common" to have teeth or any body part, said Rutka, the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Neurosurgery and a past president of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons.

The baby's mother, who did not want to be identified to protect her family's privacy, said in an interview that she took her son to the pediatrician for a stuffy nose in 2012. Doctors discovered that the boy's head had grown significantly from two weeks prior when it was measured during a routine visit.

An ultrasound and CT scan revealed the massive tumor, which doctors said they had to remove through surgery.

"The tumor was very large and the baby was so small," Ahn said. "To do this type of surgery on a 4-month-old baby is extremely risky, but something we had to do right away."

The baby's mother said: "It was absolutely terrifying. It is the scariest thing I have ever gone through."

 

Until the surgery, doctors didn't know what kind of tumor had grown on the child's brain.

Once inside the brain, Ahn discovered a solid tumor with pieces of white that he thought at first was calcium, which is not unusual in these tumors.

Craniopharyngioma tumors are formed from the lining of the brain or back of the mouth and often have calcium inside but not organized into teeth, Rutka said.

"We had to think twice," Ahn said. "We first thought they were flakes of calcium. When we looked at it closer, we were like, 'Those really look like teeth.' "

A pathologist confirmed a week later that they were teeth.

Ahn said more research is needed on craniopharyngioma tumors to determine why teeth sometimes form.

 

"No one knows," he said. "It must be the origin of the tumor. … They might have had some common lineage with the cells that produce teeth."

Dr. Narlin Beaty, a neurosurgeon at the University of Maryland Medical Center who helped research and write the New England Journal of Medicine article, said the discovery could help build on current research and theories.

Copyright © 2014, The Baltimore Sun

 

 

[Green Tiger]

Creepiest shit I have read recently. Thanks . . . ?

[SonOfTheGods]

Creepiest shit I have read recently. Thanks . . . ?

even creepier...

the first comment on that article- on the science site has a guy saying:

 

John Bryan · Top Commenter · Capella University

My dad had teeth, etc. growing in his cancerous prostate tumor (he passed on shortly after). We all thought it was weird at the time but we were told it was not that uncommon.

[Nungali]

Teratoma - 'children of the Devil' I am not going to post a link ... people can look the word up .... think about if you can handle something horrible today before you go to 'google images'.

 

I did a study years back on it linked to the persecution of women with specific qualities. Teratomas were said to come about because women had sex with the devil. Other genetic 'dysfunctions ' were tagged as ripe for persecution and torture like Turners Syndrome (46 XO genetic code) and conditions that related to extra nipples (to feed the devil baby) ... areas of insensitivity on the body ( a typical witchcraft test ... ) possible cases of parthenogenesis (considered a great threat to the patriarchy - even though supposedly the source of the persecutor's 'saviour') were also targeted ... but this is perhaps the hardest to verify (as its one of the 'oldest one's in the book' : "I cant be pregnant, I have never had sex ... it must have been off the toilet seat' etc. ) or more than likely someone responsible (perhaps a priest) was not going to be named.

 

Sometimes I wonder at the miracle that allows so many of us to pass through all the stages of development and turn out relatively 'normal'.

[suninmyeyes]

i shouldnt have looked at those images ...