Background: We reported our experience with thymic carcinomas and review their clinical features, treatment strategies, and prognoses. Methods: From April 1998 to November 2012, 11 patients pathologically diagnosed with thymic carcinoma and treated in our hospital were investigated. Results: There were 7 men and 4 women, with a median age of 62 years (range, 35 - 72). According to the Masaoka staging system, 3 patients had stage II, 1 stage III disease, 3 stage IVa disease and 4 stage IVb disease. Ten patients had squamous cell carcinoma, whereas 1 had large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma (LCNEC). We performed surgery or multimodality therapy including surgery as the initial therapy for 8 patients. Of the non-surgical cases, 1 patient received chemoradiotherapy and survived for over 6 years without recurrence, whereas 2 received palliative care. Three of 4 patients who underwent complete resection survived without disease recurrence, whereas only 1 patient with LCNEC survived in the incomplete resection group. Multimodality therapy with cisplatin and docetaxel was provided to 3 patients, and recurrence has not been observed in any of the cases. Conclusions: Favorable outcomes could be achieved in patients with thymic carcinoma who underwent intensive treatment. In particular, surgery combined with cisplatin and docetaxel plus thoracic irradiation may be an attractive approach for thymic carcinoma.
Thymic carcinoma is a rare tumor arising from the thymic epithelium that accounts for approximately 14.1% of thymic epithelial neoplasms and differs from thymoma with respect to morphological and biological features. The most common histologic type in Japan is squamous cell carcinoma [
From April 1998 to November 2012, 11 patients were pathologically diagnosed with thymic carcinoma and treated in our hospital. We retrospectively reviewed their clinical features, treatment, and prognoses. The clinical or pathological stage of the disease was determined according to the staging system described by Masaoka et al. [
Overall survival time was calculated from the date of diagnosis until death or the last follow-up visit using the Kaplan-Meier method. Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS version 20 for Windows (IBM).
The study included 7 men and 4 women, with a median age of 62 years (range, 35 - 72). According to the Masaoka staging system, 3 patients had stage II disease, 1 stage III disease, 3 stage IVa disease and 4 stage IVb disease. Pathologically, 10 patients had squamous cell carcinoma, whereas 1 had large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma (LCNEC). We performed surgery or multimodality therapy including surgery as the initial therapy for 8 patients. Of the non-surgical cases, 1 patient received chemoradiotherapy, whereas 2 received palliative care.
In the surgical intervention group, 1 patient received surgery alone, 2 patients received surgery and adjuvant radiotherapy, 3 patients received surgery with adjuvant chemotherapy and subsequent radiotherapy, and 2 patients received preoperative chemoradiotherapy, surgery, and adjuvant chemotherapy. Complete resection was performed in 4 of the 8 cases (
However, the other 3 patients experienced disease recurrence. As shown in