Malignant epithelial thymic neoplasms

The epithelial thymic neoplasms involve thymoma and thymic carcinoma. They are the most frequent thymic malignancies in adults. The incidence of more indolent thymoma is higher, whereas thymic carcinoma with more aggressive behaviour and worse prognosis is diagnosed less commonly. It is essential to distinguish other mediastinal tumors within differential diagnosis. The correct determination of clinical stage based predominantly on the presence of tumor invasivity is an important factor for the selection of adequate treatment. The exact determination of the histopathologic subtype may be difficult. The major prognostic factors include clinical stage, histopathologic subtype and the possibility of radical surgical resection. The therapy may be multimodal, depending on the clinical stage and patient characteristics. Except for surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, more drugs from the group of targeted therapies have been evaluated. (author)