This site is targeted at medical and radiology professionals, contains user contributed content, and material that may be confusing to a lay audience. Use of this site implies acceptance of our Terms of Use.

Anterior mediastinal germ cell tumours

Dr Yuranga Weerakkody and Dr Frank Gaillard et al.

Germ cell tumours are one of the causes of anterior mediastinal mass, and any of the germ cell histologies may be identified. They can therefore be divided histologically into:

Alternatively, anterior mediastinal germ cell tumours can be thought of as benign and malignant 1:

  • benign
    • mature teratoma
    • mature teratoma with an immature component of less than 50% 1
  • malignant
    • all others

Mature teratomas are the most frequent histology encountered in the mediastinum (see mediastinal teratoma), and account for 50 - 70% of all mediastinal germ cell tumours 2.

It is difficult to distinguish between the various malignant histologies, and clinical correlation with serum tumour markers (alpha-foetoprotein, beta-HCG) and biopsy are usually required.

This article is a stub, which means it needs more content. You can contribute to Radiopaedia.org too. Just register and edit... every little bit helps.

Updating… Please wait.
Loadinganimation

 Details successfully updated.

Error Unable to process the form. Check for errors and try again.

 Thank you for updating your details.