Chemotherapy for advanced and metastatic thymic carcinoma

Thymic carcinoma is a rare epithelial neoplasm with malignant cytological features, which accounts for approximately 10% of all thymic epithelial tumors. The clinical course of thymic carcinoma tends to be much more aggressive than that of thymoma, and thymic carcinoma also tends to metastasize widely, thus resulting in poor outcome. Therefore, although systemic chemotherapy plays an important role in the treatment of thymic carcinoma, the optimal regimen has not been established because of the rarity of this malignancy. There have been only a few reports describing possible chemotherapy strategies for advanced thymic carcinoma, and these were based on small series and/or retrospective studies.