Presacral tumours: a rare case of a dermoid cyst in a paediatric patient

Abstract

Presacral tumours are considered very rare tumours with their incidence being around 1:40 000. Presacral dermoid tumours, part of the family of presacral tumours, usually present in the female adult population. They are benign tumours arising from all the three germ cell layers. Presentation in a paediatric population, defined as an individual under the age of 18 years, is extremely rare. A 15-year-old girl presented with abdominal pain present for 5 years diagnosed as a somatisation disorder. Upon further investigation with abdominal CT and MRI a diagnosis of a presacral mass was made. A laparoscopic-assisted transabdominal excision of the mass was performed and histopathology confirmed the radiological suspicion of a presacral dermoid cyst. As there are no reports of a presacral dermoid cysts being excised and reported in the paediatric surgical literature, we hope to highlight this pathology as a potential cause of abdominal pain in the paediatric population.

Retrorectal Tumors: A Comprehensive Literature Review

“…In our review, we report 83 cases of laparoscopic excisions or combined laparoscopic and perineal surgical approaches for retrorectal tumors [27, 35–41, 46–79]. These reports demonstrated the safety of laparoscopy for treating retrorectal tumors.…”

Paediatric Pelvic Tumours; Presentation, Diagnosis and Challenges of Treatment in a Low Resource Setting

“…Whereas digital rectal examination (DRE) is a very sensitive and useful aspect of examination of the child with pelvic tumour, many of the clinicians who saw the patients before us did not perform DRE ostensibly considering it undue discomfort, and probably unnecessary in the child whose symptoms were vague. This is the reason these tumours can be missed for long periods as in the case reported by Jones et al [9] Whereas symptoms like mild dysuria (particularly in a female child) will lean towards urinary tract infection, some cases of straining at micturition may be missed until there is outright urinary retention. Also poor weight gain, excessive retching and vomiting which may be related to obstructive nephropathy can be misdiagnosed as being malaria or nutritional impairment in our region.…”

Presacral dermoid cyst in a young female patient: A case report

“… 5 , 6 The tumors can be resected using a laparoscope to avoid the considerable morbidity associated with open surgery. 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 As postoperative fistula can occur in up to 3% of the cases, careful dissection away from the rectum must be stressed. 11 Recurrence rates of benign presacral lesions are meager compared to malignant tumors; however, the rates can vary depending on the extent of resection.…”