1996 Volume 10 Issue 4 Pages 539-544
Recently, we treated two patients with rare thymic tumors. Case 1 was a 72-year-old female, who was diagnosed as having malignant melanoma. Although metastasis from an unknown primary melanoma could not be ruled out, we suspected that is originated in the thymus, because it was a solitary tumor, no other lesions could be found, and there was no lymph node metastasis. The resected tumor measured 6.5 × 5.5 × 3.5 cm and was encapsulated. There are only two reports of malignant melanoma originating in the thymus in Japan. She is alive with no signs of recurrence 5 months after the operation. Case 2 was a 21-year-old male diagnosed as having thymolipoma without myasthenia gravis. We resected it with surrounding fat tissue. It weighted 390 g.
