A 25-year thymoma treatment review

Most thymomas are stage I or II at presentation, and they have a good prognosis with surgical treatment. Higher stage thymomas are less common and their treatment is more problematic. Our center tends to attract patients with higher stage thymomas for treatment. We reviewed our experience and contrasted it with other published series. A 25-year retrospective record review of thymomas was done. 38 patients were treated. Median age was 49 years. Four had myasthenia gravis. Masaoka staging was: stage I--9; stage II--6; stage III--15; stage IVa--4; stage IVb--4. Resection was done in 25 patients (21 had R0 resection), chemotherapy was given to 15 patients, and 27 patients received radiotherapy. Overall median survival was 55 months. Overall 5 and 10-year survivals were 30% and 18%. 5-year survival by stage was: stage I--75%; stage II--50%; stage III/IV--23%. Negative prognostic factors on univariate analysis included presence of symptoms at presentation (p = 0.02), unresectable tumor (p = 0.06), stage III/IV (p = 0.04), and disease recurrence after resection (p = 0.0001). On multivariate analysis, only stage (p = 0.04) and recurrence (p = 0.0001) were independent predictors of survival. All patients who recurred after resection eventually died of disease. Our overall treatment results are disappointing, but we had higher stage patients than reported by most other centers. Early stage thymomas are suitable for complete surgical resection, and the prognosis is favorable. However, higher stage thymomas (stage III and higher) pose problems for complete surgical resection and their prognosis is poor. Newer multimodality treatment approaches are indicated for higher stage thymomas.