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CA Cancer J Clin 1969; 19:146-153
doi: 10.3322/canjclin.19.3.146
© 1969 American Cancer Society
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CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, Vol 19, 146-153, Copyright © 1969 by American Cancer Society

Thymic Neoplasm: A Surgical Enigma

Raymond R. Watson M.D.1, Wilson Weisel M.D.2, and Thomas M. O'Connor M.D.3

1 Assistant Clinical Professor of Thoracic Surgery, Marquette University School of Medicine, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
2 Clinical Professor and Chairman of the Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Marquette University School of Medicine.
3 Clinical Instructor in Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Marquette University School of Medicine.

Experience with 29 thymic neoplasms without myasthenia gravis has been reviewed. The operative findings readily permit a gross separation of benign and malignant tumors. The thymoma's histologic characteristics have not altered postoperative therapy in malignant thymoma nor precipitated such therapy in benign thymoma.

This analysis supports the concept of immediate tissue diagnosis of anterior mediastinal tumors and the resection of all benign thymoma.

The prognosis in malignant thymoma with the available modalities of therapy is unsatisfactory. This observation, we submit, warrants intensive postoperative mediastinal irradiation whether the diagnosis is established by biopsy or resection. Henceforth large or invasive anterior mediastinal tumors or both will have preoperative therapeutic irradiation, hopefully to increase resectability and to minimize dissemination of the tumor.

Residual malignant thymic tissue warrants further consideration of chemotherapy, and metastatic foci warrant therapy with irradiation or chemotherapy or both.






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