Harnessing the power of multi-institutional databases to improve the understanding and treatment of thymic epithelial tumors

Despite the significant advances in our understanding of thymic epithelial tumors (TETs), many questions regarding the pathogenesis and optimal treatment of TETs remain unanswered. The last few years have seen the development of several large thymic datasets to help answer critical questions for the treatment of TETs. The International Thymic Malignancy Interest Group (ITMIG) (1) database combines elements of national databases, including the European Society of Thoracic Surgeons (ESTS) (2) and Chinese Alliance for Research in Thymomas (ChART) (3), and joins other collaborators, including Japanese Association for Research on the Thymus (JART) (4) and Korean Association for Research on the Thymus (KART) (5), to enhance focused efforts for this disease. In spite of these efforts, the datasets are inherently limited by both the data fields collected and their retrospective nature.