Surgical treatment of pleural recurrence from thymoma.

A complete surgical resection represents the cornerstone of the therapy of the thymic tumours. Pleural disease may already be present at the diagnosis representing an advanced stage thymoma (Masaoka IVA) or it may appear during the follow-up, representing a pleural recurrence. The treatment of Stage IVA thymoma is quite examined in the medical literature; however just a few reports analysed the surgical treatment of thymoma recurrences, whose exclusive pleural recurrences represent more than 90%. Our aim was to review the literature laying the stress on the incidence, diagnosis, treatment options and prognosis of this highly selected group of patients with pleural recurrence from thymoma.