Introduction
A teratoma is defined as a type of germ cell tumor that may contain several different types of tissue such as hair, muscle and bone.1 It may be immature or mature, based on how normal cells looked under microscope; sometimes it is a mixture of both. They may occur in different parts depending on the sex (testicles, ovaries) or either in the chest, nervous system or abdomen. They may be benign or malignant.1,2
Mediastinal teratomas are the most common extra-gonadal germ cell tumors. They account approximately for 15% of anterior mediastinal masses in adults and 25% in children and 50-70% of mediastinal tumors.3,4 They may be symptomatic through different ways either by mass effect, endocrine function impaired or by rupture creating pleural effusion.3–8The pleural effusion can often lead to a misdiagnosis of respiratory infections especially in low-income setting. We report on case of a cystic teratoma in a 15-year-old female from a low-income setting treated twice as tuberculosis. We also performed a review on cystic mediastinal teratoma with pleural effusion in the literature. In addition to our patient, we reviewed 63 records from other institutions identified via Medline between May 2017 and November 2017 that were well documented. Our review focused on analysis of clinical presentation, pathology findings, surgery procedure and immediate and follow-up outcomes.