A review of thymic tumours

Summary Tumours of the thymus are uncommon and are generally regarded as being indolent. Whilst this is often true of thymomas; thymic adenocarcinoma and thymic neuroendocrine cancer can be aggressive and have a poor prognosis. Understanding the biology of these tumours is important for prognosis an...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Lung cancer (Amsterdam, Netherlands) Netherlands), 2008-04, Vol.60 (1), p.4-13
Main Authors: Srirajaskanthan, R, Toubanakis, C, Dusmet, M, Caplin, M.E
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biological and medical sciences
Chemotherapy
Follow-Up Studies
Hematology, Oncology and Palliative Medicine
Humans
Medical sciences
Neuroendocrine Tumors - diagnosis
Neuroendocrine Tumors - pathology
Neuroendocrine Tumors - therapy
Peptide receptor radionucleotide therapy
Pneumology
Pulmonary/Respiratory
Surgery
Thymic carcinoma
Thymic neuroendocrine tumours
Thymoma
Thymoma - diagnosis
Thymoma - pathology
Thymoma - therapy
Thymus Neoplasms - diagnosis
Thymus Neoplasms - pathology
Thymus Neoplasms - therapy
Tumors
Tumors of the respiratory system and mediastinum
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Summary:Summary Tumours of the thymus are uncommon and are generally regarded as being indolent. Whilst this is often true of thymomas; thymic adenocarcinoma and thymic neuroendocrine cancer can be aggressive and have a poor prognosis. Understanding the biology of these tumours is important for prognosis and management. The pathological features of these tumours are examined in detail. Imaging modalities for aiding in diagnosis and staging of these tumours are described; this includes CT and MRI, plus more recent advances including the use of FDG-PET and Indium-111 Octreotide scintigraphy. The treatment options available including curative surgery, debulking surgery, chemotherapy, somatostatin analogues and peptide receptor radionuclide therapy are discussed. The optimal chemotherapy regimens are still unclear, although promising results have been obtained with platinum-based chemotherapy. The role for adjuvant therapy in both thymic carcinoma and thymoma is unclear except, in patients with stage I thymomas. There is a high expression of somatostatin receptors in thymic tumours and anti-tumour benefit has been reported in patients treated with somatostatin analogues. A new development is the role of peptide receptor radionuclide therapy. This has become an established therapy in management of gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumours and its use has been recently described in case reports in both thymoma and thymic carcinoma.
ISSN:0169-5002
1872-8332
DOI:10.1016/j.lungcan.2008.01.014