[Experience with surgery for metachronous double cancer originated from thymus and lung]

A case with thymic cancer who developed pulmonary cancer ten years after the initial surgery was reported. A 50-year-old man was admitted to our hospital due to SVC syndrome. Chest X-ray examinations including venogram showed a mass lesion at the superior mediastinum. The patient underwent surgical removal and reconstruction of SVC, followed by radio-chemotherapy. The histologic diagnosis was thymic squamous cell carcinoma. He was admitted to our hospital again ten years after the initial surgery under the diagnosis of pneumonia. Bronchoscopic examination revealed nodular lesions at the right upper lobe bronchus and lower lobe bronchus, those lesions were diagnosed with squamous cell carcinomas cytologically. Right pneumonectomy was performed and the diagnosis was confirmed pathologically. Postoperative course was uneventful as of 10 months after the operation. It was concluded that this case showed metachronous double cancer of the thymus and the lung, as well as synchronous multiple bronchogenic carcinomas, which, to our knowledge, has never been reported yet.