title: Tiny thymic carcinoma completely surrounded by thymic tissue. The possibility of de novo carcinoma.
abstract: We report a case of a 61-year-old man with a tiny thymic carcinoma completely surrounded by thymic tissue. First, a thoracoscopic resection of about two-thirds of the right inferior part of the thymus containing the tumor was performed to obtain the histological diagnosis. Frozen-section diagnosis at operation revealed a thymic carcinoma. Therefore we performed a median sternotomy and resected the remnant of the thymus. A tiny thymic carcinoma completely surrounded by thymic tissue is extremely rare. In this case, as the tumor was tiny and there was a homogeneous mass without a thymoma-like component, we concluded that this tumor was de novo.
authors.affiliation: Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Showa University Fujigaoka Hospital, Yokohama, Japan.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kitami
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Suzuki
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Suzuki
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Hori
mesh_terms: D002277:Carcinoma / Q000473:pathology*; D005629:Frozen Sections; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D013953:Thymus Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*