Unlike in intraspinal teratomas in infants and children, the symptoms of these tumors in adult patients typically lack specific clinical features that, upon diagnosis, may cause confusion with other spinal tumors, such as schwannomas, which are more commonly observed in adult patients 1).
Preoperative diagnosis of spinal teratoma is not easy since the MRI features cannot determine with certainty the differential diagnosis between teratoma and other extramedullary lesions.
The performance of a histopathological examination subsequent to surgery is the final analysis required to confirm the diagnosis of an intraspinal mature teratoma.
Primary spinal cord glioblastoma (PSC GBM) is an extremely rare disease shows dismal prognosis.
Yang et al. reported the first case of multicentric PSC GBM presenting with exophytic involvement mimicking teratoma. A 12-year-old girl who presented to the hospital with a six-month history of back pain and progressive paraplegia. Spinal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings suspicious for spinal teratoma with cerebrospinal fluid dissemination. The patient underwent laminotomy and laminoplasty from T10-S2 and subtotal resection (STR) of the tumor was achieved. Histopathological analysis revealed typical histological indications of glioblastoma. After surgery, the patient underwent further adjuvant therapy consisting of radiotherapy (RT) and temozolomide (TMZ). However, 8 months after surgery, the follow-up MRI revealed tumor recurrence with intracranial dissemination. The patient still alive at the current stage (9 months after surgery) 2).