[Thymus cancers: A clinical observation].

INTRODUCTION

Thymic tumors including thymomas, thymic carcinomas, and thymic carcinoid tumors are rare tumors with an incidence of 0.13/100,000.

MATERIALS AND

METHODS

A literature search was performed to identify recent findings on epidemiology, classification, and various therapeutic approaches.

RESULTS

These tumors with a wide spectrum of histologic and biologic features may be clinically unapparent for a long time or show a very aggressive behavior with local invasion and distant metastases. Surgical resection is the mainstay in stage I and II thymomas, whereas in stage III thymomas and in thymomas with pleural dissemination surgery in context of a multimodal treatment should be discussed. Thymic tumors are chemoreactive. Targeted therapies show poor results and should only be considered in the palliative situation after failure of chemotherapy.

CONCLUSION

The new TNM (T: tumor, N: node, M: metastasis) classification of thymic tumors will help to identify the best treatment options.