In adults, inhibitor Dorsomorphin the clinical behaviour of thymic tumours may vary from an indolent course to a very aggressive one. The WHO classification describes subtypes with a progressively worsening prognosis thymoma types A, AB, and B1 have a relatively good outcome. B2 and B3 are more aggressive and have intermediate survival rates, while thymic carcinoma carries the worst prog nosis. For thymomas, the WHO histological classification and the Masaoka staging system are independent prog nostic factors. Based on the Masaoka staging system, the 20 year survival rates are reportedly 89%, 91%, 49%, 0%, and 0% in patients with Stages I, II, III, IVa, and IVb disease, respectively. Surgical resection is the mainstay of treatment for patients presenting with Masaoka Stage I or II disease.

complete tumour resection is accompanied by complete thymectomy, the removal of all surrounding mediastinal fat and possibly also the pleura, to increase the chances of ensuring negative surgical margins. Patients achieving a complete resection of a stage I tumour Inhibitors,Modulators,Libraries have a 5 year survival rate of 100% and a recur rence rate of 1%, these patients are not considered candidates Inhibitors,Modulators,Libraries for adjuvant therapies. Our limited experience suggests that thymomas in children have a similar behaviour with stage I thymoma having a favourable outcome. No further treatment was necessary in our cases after tumour removal. Conversely, the child with stage IV thymoma died of disease even before any therapy could be attempted.

Published experiences of paediatric thymoma are lim ited, but report similar results In Inhibitors,Modulators,Libraries agreement with our results, Dhall reported on 2 cases of thymoma treated with complete Inhibitors,Modulators,Libraries resection both patients were still disease free 3 years after surgery. Liang reported on 2 cases of thymoma and provided a comprehensive review and analysis of paediatric cases reported in the past 30 years among 17 patients with stage I and II tumours, 16 17 patients were alive when their case was published, whereas only 3 of 9 patients with stage IV disease survived. In adults, thymic carcinomas have a more aggressive clin ical course than thymomas and they are associated with a poor prognosis. They are frequently not amenable to radical resection at diagnosis so multimodal therapies are employed. Overall, the results obtained in adults with thy mic carcinoma are unsatisfactory, with a reported 5 year survival rate of around 50% and a mean Inhibitors,Modulators,Libraries survival of 2.

5 years. Subgroup analysis has revealed a signifi cant difference in survival rates between patients achieving total versus subtotal resections, and between totally resected and inoperable groups. The survival rate also differed signif icantly between patients receiving radio chemotherapy done and those receiving radiotherapy alone, and between the former and those given no adjuvant therapy.