This report retrospectively documents the therapy in 32 patients with thymoma at Atatürk Chest Disease and Thoracic Surgery Center from 1987 to 1996. According to the initial Masoka staging of thymoma 7 patients were in stage I,4 in stage II, 16 in stage III, and 5 in stage IV. There were 10 patients with tumors with lymphocyle predominant histology, eight with epithelial predominant histology, eleven with mixed histology. Eleven patients underwent total resection, eight had subtotal resection and 13 had biopsy alone. Actuarial survival curves were constructed according to Kaplan-Meier method,comparison between survival curves was performed by two sided log-rank test. Five year survival was 86% for stage I, 75% for stage II, 27% for stage III, 27% for stage IV; 0% for patients with epithelial predominant histology, 76% for patients with mixed histology, 80% for patients with lymphocyte predominant histology, 80% for patients who had total resection, 31% for patients with subtotal resection and 21% for patients with biopsy alone. Differences in survival between the early stage versus late stage groups, complete resection versus incomplet resection or biopsy groups and patients with lymphocyte predominant and mixed thymomas versus epithelial thymomas were statistically significant.

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