Onkologie. 2009:3(6):332-335

Malignant thymoma - our experience with therapy of 92 patients

Martin Matějů², doc. MUDr. Jan Novotný CSc^1,2, Eva Sedláčková², Jana Halámková³, Stanislav Kormunda², Luboš Petruželka⁴

¹ Ústav tělesné kultury Pedagogické fakulty Masarykovy Univerzity v Brně

² Onkologická klinika VFN a 1. LF, Praha

³ Fakultní nemocnice Brno

⁴ Onkologická klinika 1. LF UK a VFN v Praze

Background: Thymomas belong to rare neoplasms of the anterior mediastinum. There has been no randomized trial determining the role

of various treatment modalities carried out to date.

Materials and methods: Our retrospective study evaluates treatment outcomes of

92 consecutive patients with malignant thymic tumors treated at two large tertiary care hospitals in the Czech Republic since 1973. The

most important data investigated were overal survival (OS), disease free interval (DFI), time to progression (TTP) and response rate (RR).

Results: Masaoka stageing system did not show any prognostic value for overall survival. No prognostic value of histopathology was found

either. In contrast, patients with myasthenia gravis (MG) had better overall survival (MG present vs absent, 95 % vs 71 %; p=0.0002). The

extent of initial surgery was the most important prognostic factor for 5-year and 10-year survival (radical vs non-radical resection 92 %

and 86 % vs 71 % and 48 %). Palliative cisplatin based chemotherapy was associated with 50 % response rate.

Conclusion: Postoperative

radiotherapy has a negligible role in curative treatment of stage I and II malignant thymomas. The efficacy of palliative chemotherapy

seems to be less encouraging in our study in comparison to previously reported data.

Keywords: thymoma, malignant thymoma, thymic carcinoma, mediastinal tumors, chemotherapy, radiotherapy.

Published: January 1, 2010  Show citation