Ovarian Teratoma Advice please

[cooking91]

Recently I was abroad and it was discovered I had a teratoma on my right ovary. I didn't get too much information as the doctor had very broken English and so I did quite a lot of googling. I came home last week and got blood tests done which came back fine. I am now waiting scans in the UK but have been told I will need it removed. I am still worried that these scans will detect something worse and I still feel quite in the dark about it all. The doctor today didn't seem to want to give me much answers and to two of my questions said that I am being referred to a gynaecologist. I just wanted to know whether I should be worried at this stage or if the blood tests are enough to show that it will be a simple procedure. Any help is appreciated.

[Lyndy]

Hello... sorry you are worried...if it’s any comfort the process of being diagnosed (or not- hopefully in your case) just does take time and most clinicians keep information close to their chest because they have to consider and then eliminate all sorts of potential diagnoses.

Try if you can to take one day at a time....they won’t be rushed and that’s a good thing cos you don’t want to be treated for the wrong thing. Stay away from google if possible and distract yourself with nice things. Best of luck with it! xx

[cooking91 in reply to Lyndy]

Thank you

[Maus123]

Hi Cooking91. Oh my, discovered while abroad.. that's extra stressful isn't it? You also had me google the term teratoma, to be honest.

cancerresearchuk.org/about-...

I'm not a medical expert but my gut feel would be this: No, don't worry overly much just yet. It might well be benign, and some time might pass before anyone knows exactly what that teratoma is up to, if it's something to be worried about and whether there is any other treatment needed besides the surgery. Often, the diagnosis cannot be confirmed until after surgery and pathology (lab analysis of the removed tissue cells). So the best you can do right now is literally trying not to overthink it & just keeping an eye on the medical process moving forward until you receive definitive results and a treatment recommendation.

That said: Dealing with an experienced and specialized gyn. oncologist e.g. at a large cancer center of excellence can be quite advantageous, especially for rare tumour types.

Keep us in the loop if you like; we're happy to support you as best as we can in this forum. All the best. Maus

[cooking91 in reply to Maus123]

Thank you. So surgery was planned for around September but my blood results came back on fri and my CA125 was at 49 so they’ve decided to do surgery this week. Hopefully all goes well.

[Maus123 in reply to cooking91]

Good luck with the surgery. Xx. Maus

[cooking91 in reply to Maus123]

Thank you. I’m not too sure how to feel about the CA125 results