Treatment of Thymoma

For patients presenting with a mediastinal mass that is highly suspicious for an early-stage thymic epithelial tumor (TET) and is potentially completely resectable, surgical resection is the preferred initial treatment.[1] Under these circumstances, surgical resection serves as a diagnostic and therapeutic procedure. Complete resection of the tumor can be achieved in nearly all patients with stage I and stage II TETs.

Postoperative radiation therapy (PORT) is associated with survival benefit and is generally recommended for patients with stage II or stage III disease.[2] Patients with stage IVA disease are usually offered multimodality therapy consisting of induction chemotherapy followed by surgery (if the disease is considered resectable) and PORT.[3-6] Patients with stage IVB disease are treated with definitive chemotherapy.[7-9,9,10] Surgery and radiation therapy usually do not have a role as primary treatment modalities for advanced disease.