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Updated: Aug 12, 2026
Complete Thymectomy in Adult Rats with Non-invasive Endotracheal Intubation
Published on: December 29, 2014
Surgical treatment of thymoma
Reza Mehran1, Rishi Ghosh, Donna Maziak
1Division of Thoracic Surgery, University of Ottawa, Ont.
Objective:
To describe experience with the surgical treatment of thymoma.
Design:
A retrospective study.
Setting:
A teaching hospital at the University of Ottawa.
Patients:
Over 25 years, 42 consecutive patients (22 men, 20 women) who had a thymoma requiring operation.
Interventions:
Thymectomy.
Outcome Measures:
Age, sex, association with myasthenia gravis, presence of a paraneoplastic syndrome, extent of surgical resection, tumour size, histologic features of the tumour, clinical staging of the thymoma and short- and long-term outcome after surgery.
Results:
The mean (and standard deviation) age of the patients was 52.8 (12.5) years. Thirteen patients had myasthenia gravis. With respect to tumour staging, 24 patients had stage I, 7 had stage II and 11 had stage III disease. Three patients were lost to follow-up. Radiotherapy was used as an adjunct to surgical treatment in 83% of patients with stages II and III disease. Fifty-one percent of patients available for follow-up survived 175.1 months, and the cumulative 5- and 10-year overall survival rates were 87.3% and 81.4% respectively. Only 1 patient died of metastatic thymoma. Complete or partial remission of myasthenia gravis was seen in 10 (77%) affected patients. Mixed cellular histologic features and a tumour size of less than 115 cm3 were more commonly seen with stage I disease.
Conclusions:
Thymomas are characterized by slow growth and prolonged survival even in patients with invasive disease as long as the tumour is resected completely and treatment is accompanied by radiotherapy.
