Abstract
A 74-year-old woman was referred to our hospital because of ease of fatigability and blepharoptosis, and was diagnosed with generalized myasthenia gravis. Chest CT and neck ultrasound revealed no definite mediastinal tumor, but showed a thyroid tumor and an approximately 15-mm mass adjacent to its caudal portion. Myasthenia gravis and thyroid cancer with lymph node metastasis were suspected, and the patient was scheduled for extended thymectomy, thyroid tumor resection, and lymph node resection. No thymoma was identified at the time of surgery. The thyroid tumor was a follicular adenoma, and the mass caudal to it contained thymic tissue. The patient developed myasthenic crisis on the third postoperative day, and was placed on a ventilator, which was soon withdrawn. She was discharged under her own volition on the 44th postoperative day. Thus, we encountered an extremely rare case of ectopic thymoma with myasthenia gravis. In patients with myasthenia gravis, it is necessary to conduct a complete medical evaluation, bearing in mind the presence of not only anterior mediastinal thymoma but also ectopic thymoma.
