Thymoma

Malignant Thymoma

Malignant Thymoma is known as one of the terrible T's. It is known to be associated with myasthenia gravis (15% have a thymoma), red blood cell aplasia, and hypogammaglobulinemias. The average survival of patients with a malignant thymoma is around 10 years. The disease can progress, however, often it is only local metatastatic disease. Symptomates may present with bulky disease found in the thorax, as the thymoma may compress local structures and tissues.

Treatment

Treatment mainly consists of local surgical excision if local disease, with external radiation therapy or brachtherapy to the site. If there are numerous mets on presentation, then one should consider high dose steroids or anthracycline based chemotherapy consisting of cyclophophamide, adriamycin or carboplatin, as these are less toxic than cisplatin.

Octreotide Receptors and Prednisone

Metastatic thymoma cells have octreotide receptors on them, and this has led to studies whether octreotide, along with prednisone can lead to remission. The study, which published its results recently, reveald only that 10% of persons had a positive response to octreotide.