title: Presacral tumours: a rare case of a dermoid cyst in a paediatric patient.
abstract: Presacral tumours are considered very rare tumours with their incidence being around 1:40 000. Presacral dermoid tumours, part of the family of presacral tumours, usually present in the female adult population. They are benign tumours arising from all the three germ cell layers. Presentation in a paediatric population, defined as an individual under the age of 18 years, is extremely rare. A 15-year-old girl presented with abdominal pain present for 5 years diagnosed as a somatisation disorder. Upon further investigation with abdominal CT and MRI a diagnosis of a presacral mass was made. A laparoscopic-assisted transabdominal excision of the mass was performed and histopathology confirmed the radiological suspicion of a presacral dermoid cyst. As there are no reports of a presacral dermoid cysts being excised and reported in the paediatric surgical literature, we hope to highlight this pathology as a potential cause of abdominal pain in the paediatric population.
authors.affiliation: Department of General Surgery, Fremantle Hospital, Perth, Western Australia, Australia. matthew.lloyd.wynne.jones@googlemail.com
authors.forename: Matthew
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Jones
authors.forename: Japinder
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Khosa
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D003884:Dermoid Cyst / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000601:surgery; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D010386:Pelvic Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000601:surgery; D012445:Sacrococcygeal Region; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed