Abstract
Epidemiologic studies frequently yield information from which hypotheses about mechanisms of the origins of cancer can be formulated and methods for testing them proposed. Important differences exist in epidemiologic features between ovarian and testicular teratomas and between gonadal and nongonadal teratomas, suggesting different cells or mechanisms of origin. Benign ovarian teratomas, common in adult females, presumably arise from a single germ cell after its first meiotic division. In contrast, the extragonadal sacrococcygeal and retroperitoneal teratomas are very rare and are thought to develop from mitotic cells (Linder et al., 1975). Riley and Sutton (1975) proposed that a recessive mutation in the primary germ cell before meiosis would become homozygous during germ cell development in the male, but would remain heterozygous in the female as an explanation for the fact that in adults testicular teratomas are essentially all malignant, whereas ovarian teratomas are benign. This review of epidemiologic peculiarities of teratomas may provide additional etiologic clues about the pathogenesis of teratomas and stimulate confirmatory laboratory investigations or more specifically designed clinical studies.
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Gilman, P.A. (1983). The Epidemiology of Human Teratomas. In: Damjanov, I., Knowles, B.B., Solter, D. (eds) The Human Teratomas. Contemporary Biomedicine, vol 3. Humana Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-5628-1_4
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