Do some tumors contain the beginnings of a baby?

[Toff]

Do some tumors contain the beginnings of a baby?
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a981002a.html

The above is on the old side, but I wanted to know if these strange tumors can only be formed from egg cells, as the article seems to imply, or whether they can develop from sperm cells too?

Thanks.

[SBCheek]

Yes on both. But more evident in people who’s names start with “T”.

[flodnak]

Oocytes, which are essentially immature eggs, develop while their owner is still in utero. At birth, a baby girl has all the oocytes she’s ever going to have. One by one, they either mature into eggs or simply die off, until they’re all gone by the end of menopause.

Sperm cells, on the other hand, are born and die in a a matter of days.

I don’t think sperm hang around long enough to develop into tumors, bizarre or otherwise. Testicular cancer certainly exists, but it’s another matter entirely.

[camkorn]

stephen kings book the dark half is all about a guy who had half his twin living in his head. they were twins to start with but in the womb he litteraly obsorbed his brother. when he is an teenage he has an operation to remove this tumour like growth in his head that turns out to b his twin brother! is this possible?

[_Twitch]

*Originally posted by camkorn *
**stephen kings book the dark half is all about a guy who had half his twin living in his head. they were twins to start with but in the womb he litteraly obsorbed his brother. when he is an teenage he has an operation to remove this tumour like growth in his head that turns out to b his twin brother! is this possible? **

Yes, this seems to be possible. I watched a documentary about it and there have been some very bizarre findings. One man found he had a twin brother growing in his scrotum.
Check out some anthropology sites, they often show cases of this as reasons to stufy/avoid anthropology.

[Dr.Lao]

*Originally posted by Toff *
The above is on the old side, but I wanted to know if these strange tumors can only be formed from egg cells, as the article seems to imply, or whether they can develop from sperm cells too?

Sperm cells are essentially just DNA packets with tails. They lack the cellular machinery to divide and grow the way oocytes can.

[superg]

I had one of these ‘tumors’. My Doctors called it a demroidal cyst due to the fact that it contained a tooth. A perfect albeit small premolar, which i keep on the kitchen shelf in a metal film canister. My cyst started in my left ovary and in the end took over the entire thing. Leaving me with just one. I only found out I had the tumor because I had a back x-ray for a sore back from a motor bike accident - apparently most are extremelly painful.

[Oregon_sunshine]

@Toff

I wanted to know if these strange tumors can only be formed from egg cells, as the article seems to imply, or whether they can develop from sperm cells too?

According to this site, apparently so.

Because they arise from totipotential cells, they are encountered commonly in the gonads (29%). By far the most common gonadal location is the ovary, although they also occur somewhat less frequently in the testes. Cystic teratomas occasionally occur in sequestered midline embryonic cell rests and can be mediastinal (7%), retroperitoneal (4%), cervical (3%), and intracranial (3%).

[Alice_The_Goon]

Dermoid cysts are clusters of cells that never specialized, and commonly they become skin, hair, and nail cells. They are commonly found in ovaries- I had one removed a few months ago.
A lot of people believe they are a twin that was absorbed, or a fetus that migrated or something like that, but that’s not the case. In fact, the Catholic church used to require you to baptise them. Heh.

[Arwin]

@trublmakr

Dermoid cysts are clusters of cells that never specialized, and commonly they become skin, hair, and nail cells. They are commonly found in ovaries- I had one removed a few months ago.

cells that never specialized: stem-cells, right?

[John_W.Kennedy]

@trublmakr

Dermoid cysts are clusters of cells that never specialized, and commonly they become skin, hair, and nail cells. They are commonly found in ovaries- I had one removed a few months ago.
A lot of people believe they are a twin that was absorbed, or a fetus that migrated or something like that, but that’s not the case. In fact, the Catholic church used to require you to baptise them. Heh.

If they did (which I am somewhat inclined to doubt), it would certainly have been the conditional form including the words “if thou art capable of being baptized”. (One of the things they don’t teach you about in Sunday school.)

[Alice_The_Goon]

When they took my ovary out because they’d found a mass, and the pathology came back as a dermoid cyst, you better believe I did research, because that’s how I am. I did come across that piece of information. I did not dream it, hallucinate it, or otherwise make it up. Believe it… or not, as Ripley would say.