Malignant epithelial tumours of the thymus: survival after radiotherapy

This study describes 26 patients with histologically proven malignant epithelial thymic tumours seen at one radiotherapy centre between 1965 and 1980. Twenty-three patients had mediastinal radiotherapy and the overall 5-year survival rate (corrected for intercurrent death) of this group was 35%. Those patients in which there was complete surgical removal of the tumour had a good prognosis. Where this was not achieved, the prognosis was poor.