Patients
All cases were identified through Medline from different institutions
using pre-defined MeSh terms [mediastinal teratoma] OR [mature
mediastinal teratoma] OR [mature teratoma]OR [immature
teratoma] AND [pleural effusion] between May 2017 and November
2017. Mediastinal teratoma was diagnosed by anatomo-pathologic findings
after surgery resection or during medico-legal expertise. The records of
64 patients were used for clinical analysis. We excluded two patients
from whom clinical details and surgery outcomes were not obtained
through our search. From full-text articles we extracted age of the
patient at diagnosis, sex, country, first symptoms developed, type of
surgery, anatomo-pathologic findings (mature/immature, benign/malignant,
type of tissue found) as reported and patients outcomes after surgery
(death/relapse). The time to diagnosis was calculated from the first
onset of respiratory symptoms and the confirmation of diagnosis through
histological analysis after surgery resection or autopsy. Chest X-ray
and CT examination were the major tools for establishing the
preoperative diagnosis. Descriptive analysis was essentially conducted
for the report of the literature review. Categorical variables were
expressed as proportions and continuous variables were expressed by
means and standard deviations (±SD). Data were captured on a Microsoft
Excel spreadsheet and exported to STATA version 14.1 (StataCorp LP,
College Station, Texas 77845 USA). A written consent was secured from
our patient prior the study commenced.