[Surgical treatment of thymomas]

Forty-eight patients were evaluated. These cases were classified to stage I in 17, stage II in 11, stage III in 13, and stage IV in 7 by Masaoka staging. In 43, a complete resection was performed and in 5, an incomplete resection was carried out. Twelve patients between stage III and IV received postoperative radiotherapy because of incomplete resection and advanced invasive case (defined as high-risk group). Survival at 10 years was 55% for patients who were in high-risk group. This result was disappointed because survival was low in spite of surgical resection combined with postoperative radiation. From that reason, more concentrated therapy might be necessary with not only enlargement of radiation field but also chemotherapy for vascular invasive thymoma in addition to resection.