Pleuropneumonectomy for the Treatment of Masaoka Stage IVA Thymoma

Background The treatment of locally advanced Masaoka stage IVA thymoma is not standardized and is problematic. Methods A single-institution retrospective study was made of 5 patients with World Health Organization B3 thymomas who underwent pleuropneumonectomy for locally advanced thymoma. Two patients had recurrent thymoma and 3 presented de novo with stage IVA disease. Patients had a variety of induction and adjuvant treatments. Results There was no operative mortality, and only 1 patient had a major complication. Several patients had relatively prolonged disease-free survival. The median survival was 86 months, and the Kaplan-Meier survival was 75% (95% confidence interval: 53% to 97%) at 5 years and 50% (95% confidence interval: 25% to 75%) at 10 years. Conclusions Pleuropneumonectomy can be performed safely in patients with advanced thymomas and may improve survival. Highly selected patients might be cured with this approach if a complete resection is performed. While the optimal multimodality strategy for these patients is unknown, induction chemotherapy followed by resection then chemoradiotherapy seems promising.