Doctors from Da Nang’s C Hospital have successfully performed an operation to remove a pulmonary teratoma from 22-year-old Tran Thi Ngoc from Quang Nam Province’s Thang Binh District.  This was the first time that the removal of such a tumour had been conducted at this hospital. 

Earlier, the patient had been admitted to the hospital due to coughing up blood, chest pains and a high fever, and she weighed only 30kg.

It was reported that Ngoc had suffered from persistent haemoptysis for the last 2 years, and she had been treated at many hospitals nationwide where she had been diagnosed with pneumonia, but no improvement had been seen.

A doctor examining the patient

It took 8 hours to remove the tumour, along with the upper and middle lobes of the patient's right lung.

Ngoc is now gradually recovering and gaining weight after the successful operation.  She is expected to be discharged from the hospital in the next few days.

A teratoma is a tumour with tissue or organ components resembling normal derivatives of more than one germ layer.  The criteria for pulmonary origin are exclusion of a gonadal or other extra-gonadal primary site and origin entirely within the lung.  Lung teratomas are rare, and for unknown reasons more commonly involve the upper lobe of the left lung. 

Since 2003, about 30 cases of lung teratomas have been reported worldwide.