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Me: How do teratoma tumors work?Med Student 1: Basically when you are a tiny embryo, all your cells have the potential to give rise to any specific tissue and eventually all the cells settle in and become something specific. But sometimes a handful of them linger and end up taking a wrong turn. Teratomas are most common in the ovaries.
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and do it in a sort of disorganized way.Like a scrambled twin that got lost somewhere in the mix?Med Student 1: They're still your cells, I wouldn't characterize them as a 'twin'. More like a very benign cancer that doesn't really go anywhere or do anything but sit there and get bigger.

How insane is it that Nicola Ellington's tumor was killing her baby? It's like that movie How to Get Ahead in Advertising only it was more like How to Get Ahead In Babytising, except it was also significantly less funny.Med Student 2: The tumor wasn't really killing the baby. However, in order for a baby to grow, the female body produces a certain hormonal milieu. Teratomas are typically characterized by having a number of different cell lines at various stages of differentiation (or development). For whatever reason, I believe what happened was that one of these particular cell lines was especially responsive to some of the maternal hormones and used it as a growth factor. It wasn't really feeding off the maternal blood, or stealing from the baby. It was just thriving in the environment that pregnancy produced.That's still gross.Med Student 2: That's what was harmful to the mother secondary to its size. It wasn't malignant, like a cancer, but it grew to a size where it started to press on her lungs and organs and that resulted in major problems. If it were to continue to grow there certainly could have been more serious consequences.
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