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Malignant thymoma invading pulmonary artery. Changing treatment options
D Weissberg1, A J Cohen, H Hayat
1Department of Thoracic Surgery, Tel Aviv University Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv, Israel. dovw@ccsg.tau.ac.il
Background:
Curative treatment of malignant thymoma is resection; however, this may be precluded by invasion of vital organs.
Patients And Methods:
Two patients with extensive intrathoracic spread of thymoma (Stages III and IV A) are presented. Treatment involved a combination of resection, radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
Results:
One patient survived 9 years, 4 months, but eventually died of metastatic spread; the other one is well and without evidence of disease 30 months after treatment.
Conclusions:
Thymoma is a slow-growing tumor. Successful surgical treatment in advanced cases is possible, if aided by radiotherapy and chemotherapy. The adjuvant therapy converts a non-resectable tumor to a resectable one.