title: Successful treatment of advanced thymic carcinoma with lymph node and pleural metastases: A case report.
abstract: Thymic carcinoma is a rare type of cancer that is more aggressive and is associated with a poorer prognosis compared with thymoma. No definitive clinical management of this disease has been established to date. This report describes the 20-year clinical course of a 50-year-old male patient who was successfully treated for initially diagnosed stage IVb thymic carcinoma. Thymo-thymectomy combined with resection of the surrounding organs was performed on December 1995 with curative intent (R0) after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy. From June 2008 until present, four pleural and subclavicular lymph node metastases have been treated with chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery, followed by low-dose oral steroid therapy. The patient has remained disease-free for the last 20 months since the initiation of prednisolone treatment. Thus, multidisciplinary treatment may achieve long-term survival in patients with stage IVb thymic carcinoma.
authors.affiliation: Department of Thoracic Surgery, Yao Municipal Hospital, Yao, Osaka 581-0069, Japan.
authors.forename: Yoko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yamamoto
authors.affiliation: Department of Thoracic Surgery, Yao Municipal Hospital, Yao, Osaka 581-0069, Japan.
authors.forename: Ken
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kodama
authors.affiliation: Department of Thoracic Surgery, Yao Municipal Hospital, Yao, Osaka 581-0069, Japan.
authors.forename: Tomohiro
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Maniwa
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Kishima Hospital Main Division, Yao, Osaka 581-0853, Japan.
authors.forename: Hiroki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kishima
keywords: long-term survival; stage IVb; surgery; thymic carcinoma