Intermediate oncologic outcomes after uniportal video-assisted thoracoscopic thymectomy for early-stage thymoma

Recent years have seen a trend towards utilizing a video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) approach for treatment of thymoma. Although increasing in practice, intermediate- and long-term oncologic outcome data is lacking for the VATS approach. There is no oncologic data for the uniportal VATS approach. We sought to evaluate the feasibility and impact on patient survival of uniportal VATS thymectomy for early-stage thymoma.

The clinical outcomes for 17 patients with Masaoka stage I to II thymomas treated between January of 2009 and July of 2014 at a single institution were collected retrospectively. Primary endpoint was overall survival (OS) and secondary endpoint was recurrence-free survival (RFS).

Ten women and seven men underwent uniportal VATS thymectomy; eleven had stage I thymoma and six had stage II thymoma. There were no conversions to open surgery. Operative mortality was zero. Mean tumor size was 3.8±1.0 centimeters, with a range of 1.9 to 6.0 centimeters. All patients underwent a R0 resection. Five-year survival was 100%, and the estimated RFS was 100%.

Our findings suggest that uniportal VATS thymectomy for early-stage thymoma is feasible, and the intermediate-term oncologic outcomes are comparable to historic standards for open and multi-incision VATS thymectomy. However, additional follow-up is required to evaluate for long-term oncologic outcomes.