[Thymic carcinoma].

Thymic epithelial tumors are mainly consisted of thymoma, thymic carcinoma, and thymic carcinoid. And thymic carcinoma is very rare neoplasm. The classification of thymic carcinoma has remained a subject of controversy for many years. The outline of thymic carcinoma has been clarified by "Atlas of Tumor Pathology: Tumors of the Mediastium (AFIP)" and "Histrogical Typing of Tumours of the Thymus (WHO)" published recently. Squamous cell carcinoma is by far the most common in Japan. Thymic carcinoma is a predilection for male. The peak of age was 40-60 years. Thymic carcinoma already had contiguous invasion around neighbor organs, dissemination, and lymph node metastases or distant metastases at diagnosis. Two third of patients with thymic carcinoma performed surgery, and most of them performed adjuvant radiotherapy or chemotherapy. 5-year survival of thymic carcinoma was 33-50%. Histologic tumor type, type of tumor margin, growth pattern, nuclear atypia, necrosis and mitotic activity were correlated with survival. In this paper thymic carcinoma is reviewed mainly based on recently literatures and results obtained from a questionnaire on thymic epithelial tumors in Japan.