The Annals of Thoracic Surgery, Vol 55, 1197-1201, Copyright © 1993 by The Society of Thoracic Surgeons
Massive thymic hyperplasia
AG Linegar, JA Odell, WM Fennell, PM Close, MK De Groot, DR Casserly and JI Perold
Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, University of Cape Town, South Africa.
Massive thymic hyperplasia is an extremely rare form of true thymic
hyperplasia most often described in infants and children. Hyperplasia of
this order is not known to occur in any other organ, and its etiology and
prognostic significance remain unknown. As there is no accurate way of
preoperatively differentiating massive thymic hyperplasia from other tumors
of the thymus and anterior mediastinum, we advise excision in all cases for
histological analysis and relief of mediastinal compression. This
description of 4 cases updates the 30 previously reported cases, and
includes a literature review.