A Single-center Analysis of 71 Patients with Thymic Carcinoma: the Chronological Changes in the Surgical Procedure and Prognosis

Overview

Journal J Thorac Dis

Publisher AME Publishing Company

Specialty Pulmonary Medicine

Date 2022 Oct 17

PMID 36245584

Authors

Keisuke Yokota

Katsuhiro Okuda

Hiroshi Haneda

Tsutomu Tatematsu

Risa Oda

Tadashi Sakane

Takuya Matsui

Kensuke Chiba

Ryuji Nakamura

Ryoichi Nakanishi

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: Effective treatments for thymic carcinoma (TC) have not been established due to its rarity and the prognosis has not yet been improved. In the present study, data of patients who underwent treatment for TC at our single institution were retrospectively reviewed to investigate the chronological changes in the clinical characteristics, surgical procedure, and prognosis.

Methods: A total of 71 patients were included in this study. To investigate the chronological changes, the patients were divided into two groups at January 2009, when minimally invasive surgery (MIS) for thymic epithelial tumors (TETs) was introduced.

Results: Among the 71 TC patients, 24 patients underwent surgery through December 2008 (earlier period), and 21 underwent surgery from January 2009 (later period). The patients in the later group were more likely to be diagnosed by chest computed tomography (CT) scan without subjective symptom. The rates of MIS and complete resection were significantly higher and the number of the patients at the early stage were significantly greater in the later group. The 5-year overall survival (OS) rate of the patients who underwent surgery at earlier and later groups were 58.7% and 92.8% respectively (P<0.01).

Conclusions: The prognosis of TC has improved over time, thanks to early detection by CT screening and complete surgical resection.

Citing Articles

Surgical treatment of thymic epithelial tumors: a narrative review.

Agrafiotis A, Berzenji L, Koyen S, Vermeulen D, Winthagen R, Hendriks J Mediastinum. 2024; 8:32.

PMID: 38881810 PMC: 11176987. DOI: 10.21037/med-23-44.

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