Metastatic thymoma: a case report of an isolated, intra-abdominal metastasis causing asymptomatic spinal cord compression

Abstract

Background. Although thymomas are characterized histologically by a benign appearance, they have the potential for aggressive local invasion, and occasionally they metastasize.

Case report. We describe a 47-year-old woman who recently presented to our clinic with asymptomatic spinal cord compression due to an intra-abdominal metastasis of a thymoma arising as the first site of metastasis 21 years after the primary tumour was resected.

Conclusions. For the patient presented here, radiotherapy and surgery were chosen over systemic therapy as the primary treatment modalities at the time of recurrence for two reasons. First, the patient had a single, isolated metastasis that occurred after a 2-decade disease-free interval; thus, preoperative radiotherapy followed by resection was potentially curative. Second, it was thought, on the basis of the retroperitoneal location of the recurrent tumour immediately below the diaphragm, that it possibly was not a haematogenously disseminated metastasis but a local pleural and lymphatic migration.