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Updated: Jan 2, 2026
Thermal Ablation for the Treatment of Abdominal Tumors
Published on: March 7, 2011
An exploratory study of CT-guided percutaneous radiofrequency ablation for stage I thymoma
Jun Dong1, Shaofei Yuan2, Boyang Chang3
1Department of Integrated Therapy in Oncology, State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, Guangzhou, 510060, People's Republic of China.
Background:
Thymoma is a rare tumor that originates from thymic epithelial cells and is usually associated with myasthenia gravis. Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) is a minimally invasive and curative treatment for other tumors, but RFA has not been used for the early treatment of thymoma.
Methods:
The current study included 13 patients with stage I thymoma who were not candidates for surgical resection or video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS). All patients underwent first-line CT-guided percutaneous RFA. The feasibility and therapeutic effects of the intervention were thoroughly documented.
Results:
All tumors were completely ablated (13 / 13, 100%). During follow-up (median 80.5 months, range, 64.6-116.9 months), only 1 of the 13 patients had recurrence of thymoma (1 / 13, 7.7%) at 35.5 months after the initial ablation. There were no surgery-related deaths after RFA treatment. The most common complications were fever (13 / 13, 100%) and pain (13 / 13, 100%). There was only one patient who occurred severe puncture-related bleeding during the procedure that needed blood transfusion and intravascular embolization of the punctured-injured vessel.
Conclusion:
CT-guided percutaneous RFA for treatment of stage I thymoma is associated with minor trauma, few complications and good treatment outcomes.
