A rare case of typical carcinoid of the lung coincident with thymoma

The present report describes a 42-year-old woman with a coin lesion of the upper lobe of the right lung, preoperatively diagnosed as a small cell lung carcinoma of unusually slow growth. The preoperative workup revealed a mass in the mediastinum, diagnosed as a thymoma. Accordingly, a right upper lobectomy and mediastinal lymph node dissection, followed by a radical thymectomy, were performed. The resected pulmonary specimen was histologically diagnosed as a typical carcinoid and the mediastinal mass as a mixed type thymoma with microscopic invasion. The postoperative course was uneventful. The patient is doing well with no sign of recurrence one year after her operation. To our knowledge, the coincidence of a bronchopulmonary carcinoid and thymoma is believed to be the first such case reported in the literature.