Thymic Carcinomas Diagnosed at the Pathology Department at Jra Hospital

Abstract

INTRODUCTION Thymic epithelial tumours are rare pathologies but represent 20% of mediastinum tumours [1] and are the first cause of anterior mediastinal mass (35 to 50% of cases). According to World Health Organization (WHO) classification in 2004, thymic epithelial tumors are divided on three types: thymomas (80% of cases), thymic carcinomas and neuroendocrine tumours (5%) [2, 3]. Thymic carcinomas have an incidence of 0.2 to 0.5 per million people [4]. Itrepresent 5% of all malignant thymic tumours and 15% of thymic epithelial tumours. These are aggressive tumours [1, 5]. The overall survival rate at 5 years is about 30 to 50%, and it is less than 20% between 5 and 10 years [6, 7]. The aim of our study is to describe the epidemiological and histopathologicalfeatures of thymic carcinomas, diagnosed at the Pathology Department, with a review of the literature. Materials and method This is a retrospective and descriptive study of thymic carcinomas diagnosed at the Pathology Departmentat JRAUniversity Hospital, during 10 years from January 2010 to December 2019.