OBJECTIVESTo study the diagnosis and treatment of thymoma and to assess prognosis factors.

METHODSThe clinical data on 116 patients with thymoma were collected. A retrospective analysis was performed by comparison of their survival rates computed by the actuarial method and rate of recurrence and metastasis.

RESULTSChest radiograph was used chiefly for the preoperative diagnosis of thymoma; myasthenia gravis (MG) (25.0%, 29/116) was the most common paraneoplastic disease. An extensive and radical resection was carried out to reduce the recurrence rate of thymoma with stage I and stage II (chi(2) = 4.941 P = 0.0219). The survival time was prolonged by postoperative radiotherapy and chemotherapy. A strong correlation was noted between the clinical stage and histologic subtype of M-H classification, by which the invasive behavior of thymoma was predicted (r = 0.385, P = 0.007). The 3-, 5-, and 10-year survival rates were 81.2%, 67.9% and 40.5%, respectively. Statistical analysis showed a significant negative correlation between stage and survival rate (r = -0.897, P = 0.0000).

CONCLUSIONThe prognosis of thymoma depends mainly on the histologic subtype, clinical stage and multimodality treatment rather than paraneoplastic diseases.