Chemotherapy of thymomas and thymic carcinomas.

Thymomas are chemosensitive tumors with overall response rates of about 70% to various chemotherapy regimens. A fraction of patients (up to 25%-30%) will obtain a CR after chemotherapy. These results justify the use of chemotherapy in a multimodality fashion for the treatment of patients with advanced tumors. With radiotherapy added to chemotherapy, if necessary and if technically feasible, inoperable tumors may become resectable, leading to excellent long-term survival. On the other hand, thymic carcinomas are more refractory to chemotherapy, and their prognoses remain poor.