Trans-Arterial Infusion Chemotherapy for Recurrence of Pleural Dissemination After Thymectomy

Management of pleural recurrence after curative resection of thymoma

“…If thymoma is rare, pleural recurrences are even rarer; they account for less than 10% of resected thymomas. [1][2][3][4][5] Only a few case reports focused on the surgical treatment of pleural implants that were discovered at follow-up, 13 whereas most of the articles reported pleural recurrences from thymoma together with mediastinal and systemic relapses. The etiology of the appearance of pleural implants many years after resection of a noninvasive thymoma is not clear.…”

“…Similar to the treatment of malignant pleural mesothelioma, some authors 8,13 have added hyperthermic intrapleural chemotherapy to the surgical resection of pleural recurrences from thymoma. In our last 3 patients we also used hyperthermic intraoperative administration of 2 drugs (cisplatin and epidoxorubicin); the outcome is still ''in progress,'' but the treatment is feasible with low morbidity.…”

“…[2][3][4][5][6][7] Unfortunately, few reports have analyzed the treatment of recurrences of thymoma, [3][4][5][6][7] and few reports have focused on pleural implants. [8][9][10] The treatment of pleural implants is controversial 6,8,[11][12][13][14][15] ; thus, the aims of our study were (1) to retrospectively analyze our institutional experience on pleural recurrences from thymoma and (2) to discuss the treatment and prognosis of this highly selected group of patients.…”

Surgical treatment of pleural recurrence from thymoma

“…In literature there are some papers, mainly case reports, reporting partial response or tumour regression with non-surgical treatments [11,13,[29][30].…”

“…Unfortunately scanty medical literature is available about the treatment of recurrences of thymoma [3][4][5][6][7] and only a few reports focus on the pleural implants [8][9][10]. The treatment of the pleural implants ranges from immunosuppressive therapy [11] to platinum based chemotherapy regimens [12][13], to surgical removal of the pleural implants with intrapleural hyperthermic chemotherapy [8,14], to extended resections as the pleuro-pneumonectomy [15].…”