Thymoma is rare type of cancer that has formed in the thymus, an organ located in the chest behind the sternum that produces lymphocytes for the immune system to fight disease.
Background
Thymoma grows slowly and is often contained within the thymus. However, if the thymoma grows into other chest organs like the heart or the lungs, as it has in some instances, then it is deemed invasive thymoma.
The more malignant thymic carcinoma occurs when the cells cease to resemble thymic cells and quickly spread to other parts of the body. This type of thymoma is rare and treatment proves incredibly tough.
Causes
Thymoma occurs when the epithelial cells that make up the tissue of the thymus organ become malignant. If the lymphocytes (the other cell present in the thymus) become cancerous, it is then lymphoma.
It is unknown what the specific causes of thymoma are, but it tends to occur in the middle-aged. Thymic carcinoma, however, can occur in people of any age.
Thymoma is often associated with the disease myasthenia gravis, which involves a weakening of the muscles. Doctors tend to diagnose thymoma while investigating other diseases, usually while conducting chest X-rays.
Effects
Many thymoma patients show no symptoms, and those that do tend to display symptoms associated with other chest diseases such as coughing, shortness of breath and chest pains.
Because thymoma affects an organ instrumental to the immune system, the body tends to be stricken with other diseases. In addition to myasthenia gravis, patients might also develop pure red cell aplasia (reduced red blood cell production) lupus, polymyositis, Sjogren's syndrome, hypogammaglobulinemia and even rheumatoid arthritis.
Treatment
If the thymoma is noninvasive (contained entirely within the thymus), it can be removed by surgery or, in rare cases, radiation therapy. Radiotherapy is an option if surgery is considered dangerous to the patient or when surgery has not removed all the cancer, as thymomas are particularly susceptible to radiation.
Invasive thymoma requires surgery and often radiation therapy even if the cancer seems to have been entirely removed. In advanced stages where the cancer is inoperable, radiation therapy remains an effective option in a majority of cases.
Thymic carcinoma can require surgery, radiation therapy and even the use of corticosteroids, drugs that employ hormones.
Chemotherapy has also been used to treat thymoma when the cancer has spread throughout the body, and often works best when patients take multiple drug treatments.
Prevention
Thymoma's rarity also means that only minimal research has been devoted to it. Thus, it is not known how one can specifically prevent thymoma outside of traditional cancer prevention strategies such as diet and exercise.
Tags: radiation therapy, associated with, immune system, myasthenia gravis, occurs when, other chest, other diseases