Surgical treatment of thymomas in patients with generalized myasthenia gravis

: Experience in surgical treatment of 2977 patients with generalized myasthenia is presented, 386 (13%) of them have undergone surgeries for thymus tumors. Organo-specific tumors (thymoma) were diagnosed in 370 (95.9%) of them. Computed and magnetic-resonance tomography has the highest sensitivity and specificity in diagnosis of thymus tumors. Thymomthymectomy was performed in 317 patients including extended one in 117 (36.9%). Postoperative lethality in thymic tumor in the last years was 0.5%, general lethality over all period--5.1%. According to used classification (WHO, 1999) types of thymoma were the following: type A--2.1%, type B--86.3%, type AB--9.6%. Prognosis of surgical treatment depends of tumor type (it is worse in type B than in types A and AB), duration of the disease and severity of myasthenia.