Woman’s Brain Tumor Is Her ‘Evil Twin’: Has Bones, Hair & Teeth
After months of struggling to understand things she had read and feeling lost in conversations, Indiana University PhD student Yamini Karanam sought medical help.
But doctors argued over what was really wrong with her. “The neurologist would say the neurosurgeon is not being practical in your case,” Karanam told NBC News. “And the neurosurgeon would say the neurologist is not being optimistic in your case.”
Yamini Karanam
She finally found a doctor who located a tumor in her brain and would do a minimally-invasive procedure to remove it. During surgery, however, her doctor was shocked to discover that the tumor was an embryonic twin, complete with bone, hair, and teeth, that Karanam later dubbed her “evil twin.”
“I just didn’t imagine any of this,” she says..
That “evil twin” actually has a medical name—teratoma.
According to the National Institutes of Health, a teratoma is a type of tumor made of cysts that contain one or more of the three layers of cells found in a developing baby.
Some have speculated that they are basically twins that never quite develop and are instead absorbed into the surviving baby’s body, according to The Washington Post, and newborns occasionally have large teratomas attached to them like a conjoined twin.
While rare, teratomas can develop anywhere—in the brain, like it did for Karanam, or in the ovaries, abdomen, or chest. A teratoma can include hair, teeth, muscle, and bone, and can even look like a fetus.
While Karanam’s story sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie, people shouldn’t panic about having an “evil twin” of their own. “Teratomas are quite unusual,” says Sean Grady, MD, chairman of the department of neurosurgery at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. “They probably represent one percent or less of all brain tumors.”
Teratomas are more likely to show up in the brains of children because they’re a developmental problem, Grady says. However, he stresses that teratomas are may not actually a twin: “The tissue elements found in an embryo are there, like hair or glandular structures, but it’s not like there was a development of an initial human.”
Related: How Healthy Is Your Brain? Take This Test To Find Out
How would you know if you have a teratoma? If it develops on your body, you may feel a lump or pain in one area. People with a teratoma in the brain like Karanam may experience headaches, nausea, vomiting, and other symptoms of a tumor, but typically wouldn’t know that they actually have a teratoma until it’s removed by surgery.
And yes, you don’t want to leave a teratoma in your body. “As it gets bigger, it would cause more problems,” says Grady.
Once a teratoma is removed, it’s then biopsied to see if it’s benign or malignant. If a teratoma is cancerous, a person may need to undergo chemotherapy as well. (Karanam’s “evil twin” was benign, and she’s expected to recover in three weeks.)
There are no known risk factors associated with teratomas, and doctors still aren’t sure why they’re caused.
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