Objective:

To describe three cases with giant thoracic teratomas, occupying most of the right hemithorax.

Presentation of the cases:

We describe three patients with giant thoracic teratomas surgically treated between 2011 y 2017. Age was 22, and 37 years old. There were one male and two females. Main symptoms were thoracic pain and moderate dyspnea to physical efforts (patient 1), thoracic pain, moderate dyspnoea and fever (patient 2) and thoracic discomfort and light dyspnoea (patient 3). Patient two was submitted three times to thoracoscopy with the diagnosis of pleural empyema. Fever could have influenced to pose this diagnosis. Pus was not obtained, but some small whitish clots floating in a dark liquid, result observed in the material obtained with US guided puncture. This finding made us to pose the diagnosis of mediastinal teratoma. CT showed a cystic image in the right hemithorax, without calcifications in patients one and two and small parietal calcifications in patient three. Surgical cysts removal was satisfactory in all patients. At the end of the study patients were asymptomatic with no evidence of recurrence eight years, 17 months and seven months, after operation, respectively. Diagnosis was confirmed by anatomopathological study.

Conclusions:

Giant thoracic teratomas produce symptoms associated to their volume as: pain, cough, dyspnea and adjacent organ compression. Surgical treatment yield excellent results.