Surgeons have extracted a tumour containing a tiny brain, skull and hair from a teenager's ovary.
skull
The procedure was undertaken by a team of Japanese surgeons after the discovered a 10cm wide tumour whilst carrying out a routine operation to remove the appendix of a 16-year-old girl.
According to the journal Neuropathology, the scientists described the specimen find as a smaller version of a cerebellum, which usually sits underneath the brain's two hemispheres.
Around one-fifth of ovarian tumours contain foreign tissue - among which those commonly found are cartilage, fat, muscle, hair and teeth - and go by the name of teratomas which comes from the Greek word ''teras'' meaning monster.
In this case the tumour was a mature cystic teratoma.
Angelique Riepsamen at the University of New South Wales in Australia said: ''Neural elements similar to that of the central nervous system are frequently reported in ovarian teratomas, but structures resembling the adult brain are rare.''