A large thymic mass with persistent active tissue in an elderly cadaver

Thymus is an encapsulated organ having its bilateral origin from the third pharyngeal pouch. It appears to be a single organ but actually it is bilobed. It attains its maximum development at puberty and then it begins to involute. The parenchyma is replaced by adipocytes and lymphocyte production declines. Here we present a large thymus with a small area of persistent active tissue in it which was obtained during routine undergraduate dissection class. Tissues taken from different quadrants of the large thymic mass were processed, embedded in paraffin and sections were taken for hematoxylin and eosin staining which showed presence of thymic tissue in only one quadrant. Further sections from that quadrant was treated with cytokeratin to confirm its epithelial origin. Therefore knowledge of a large persistent thymus will be helpful to the radiologists and surgeons for making differential diagnosis and in avoiding unnecessary surgical intervention.