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Ann Thorac Surg 2003;76:884-885
© 2003 The Society of Thoracic Surgeons

Original article: general thoracic

Invited commentary

Donald E. Low, MDa

a Virginia Mason Medical Center, 1100 North Avenue, Seattle, WA 98101, USA

e-mail: donald.low@vmmc.org

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

The classification and treatment of thymic epithelial tumors has been in evolution over the last 40 to 50 years. New systems of histologic classification have been proposed by Levine and Rosai in 1978, Muller-Hermelink in 1985, and Suster and Moran in 1999. The Masaoka system was introduced in the 1970s and 1980s and is based on the presence or absence of capsular invasion, direct extension into surrounding structures, and metastatic disease. This classification system is fairly easily interpreted from the surgical perspective, considering that previous differentiation between invasive and noninvasive thymomas was primarily based not on histological criteria but on surgical interpretation of intraoperative findings.

The W.H.O. classification was introduced in 1999 and represents an attempt to standardize histologic classification of thymic epithelial tumors and to provide guidelines to assess invasiveness on histologic as well as surgical parameters. It provides a more consistent approach to the classification of these tumors, which will not only improve the ability to interpret and compare case series and clinical trials, but will also provide a more . . . [Full Text of this Article]






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