[Clinico-morphological characteristics of thymomegaly]

48 autopsy cases of thymomegaly in children up to 14 years and in adults from 18 to 55 years are studied. The patients died either from the acute or chronic infectious diseases resistant to the therapy or suddenly during or several hours after the diagnostic manipulations, small surgical interventions. Analysis of clinical data and morphological immunohistochemical and ultrastructural studies of the thymus and organs of the immune and endocrine system showed the thymomegaly in the majority of cases to be a local manifestation of the endocrine-immune deficiency syndrome. Primary (congenital) and secondary (acquired) thymomegaly are to be distinguished. A primary thymomegaly occurs in children and adults having congenital pluriglandular endocrinopathy with hypocortisism as well as an adrenal hypo- or aplasia with an antigenic stimulation. A secondary thymomegaly occurs in children of the first year of life and reflects the first phase of the thymic response in the activation of the immune T-system predominantly prolonged due to the immature state of the hypothalamico-hypophyseal-adrenal system. In the adults secondary thymomegaly occurs in cases of the acquired endocrinopathy with hypocortisism.