Thymic Malignancies (Classification, Staging, Preoperative Evaluation, Diagnostic Methods)

Abstract

Although thymic tumors often arise from the thymic epithelium, the most common thymic epithelial tumor is thymoma. Thymoma is also the most common primary tumor of the anterior mediastinum. Traditionally, Masaoka-Koga staging are the most commonly used staging system for thymoma. In recent years, The “International Thymic Malignancy Interest Group (ITMIG)” and the “International Association for Lung Cancer Association (IASLC)” proposed the TNM classification as a recommendation for thymic malignancies. Survival expectation and response to the treatment are quite high in thymomas.