Three Cases of Thymic Carcinoma

Kang, Yang Ho; Jeon, Doo Soo; Lee, Hyo Jin; Park, Sung Min; Lee, Jun Hong; Oh, Hyun Myung; Kim, Yun Seong; Kim, Byung Jin; Lee, Min Ki; Park, Soon Kew

Abstract

Thymic carcinoma is a relatively rare neoplasm of thymus and about 150 cases have been reported until now. It is a thymic epithelial neoplasm with obvious cytologic atypia and usually located in the anterior and superior mediastinum. It has several histologic typeswell-differentiated (keratinizing) squamous cell carcinoma and pooly-differentiated (nonkeratinizing) squamous cell carcinoma, small cell carcinoma, clear cell carcinoma and adenosquamous cell carcinoma. The symtoms of thymic carcinoma is anterior chest pain, dyspnea, coughing and SVC syndrome usually caused by compression of mediastinal organs. Histologic grade is the most important prognostic factor. The prognosis of well-differentiated (keratinizing) squamous cell carcinoma subtype is better than other subtypes. But all of the variants of thymic carcinoma are highly lethal and should be treated aggressively with all modalities of therapy. Authors report three cases of thymic carcinoma diagnosed by clinical, radiographic, and histologic findings with review of the literature.