Application of Postoperative Chemotherapy on Thymomas and Its Prognostic Effect

• Main Authors: Ke MA, Zhitao GU, Yongtao HAN, Jianhua FU, Yi SHEN, Yucheng WEI, Lijie TAN, Peng ZHANG, Chun CHEN, Renquan ZHANG, Yin LI, Ke-Neng CHEN, Hezhong CHEN, Yongyu LIU, Youbing CUI, Yun WANG, Liewen PANG, Zhentao YU, Xinming ZHOU, Yangchun LIU, Yuan LIU, Wentao FANG, Members of the Chinese Alliance for Research in Thymomas
• Format: Article
• Language: zho
• Published: Chinese Anti-Cancer Association; Chinese Antituberculosis Association 2016-07-01
• Series: Chinese Journal of Lung Cancer
• Subjects: Thymic tumors; Chemotherapy; Surgery; Prognosis
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.3779/j.issn.1009-3419.2016.07.10

Background and objective To study the role of postoperative chemotherapy and its prognostic effect in Masaoka-Koga stage III and IV thymic tumors. Methods Between 1994 and 2012, 1,700 patients with thymic tumors who underwent surgery without neoajuvant therapy were enrolled for the study. Among them, 665 patients in Masaoka-Koga stage III and IV were further analyzed to evaluate the clinical value of postoperative chemotherapy. The Kaplan-Meier method was used to obtain the survival curve of the patients divided into different subgroups, and the Cox regression analysis was used to make multivariate analysis on the factors affecting prognosis. A Propensity-Matched Study was used to evaluate the clinical value of chemotherapy. Results Two-hundred-twenty-one patients were treated with postoperative chemotherapy, while the rest 444 cases were not. The two groups showed significant differences (P<0.05) regarding the incidence of myasthenia gravis, World Health Organization (WHO) histological subtypes, pathological staging, resection status and the use of postoperative radiotherapy. WHO type C tumors, incomplete resection, and postoperative radiotherapy were significantly related to increased recurrence and worse survival (P<0.05). Five-year and 10-year disease free survivals (DFS) and recurrence rates in patients who underwent surgery followed by postoperative chemotherapy were 51% and 30%, 46% and 68%, comparing with 73% and 58%, 26% and 40% in patients who had no adjuvant chemotherapy after surgery (P=0.001, P=0.001, respectively). In propensity-matched study, 158 pairs of patients with or without postoperative chemotherapy (316 patients in total) were selected and compared accordingly. Similar 5-year survival rates were detected between the two groups (P=0.332). Conclusion Pathologically higher grade histology, incomplete resection, and postoperative radiotherapy were found to be associated with worse outcomes in advanced stage thymic tumors. At present, there is no evidence to show that postoperative chemotherapy may help improve prognosis in patients with Masaoka-Koga-Koga stage III and IV thymic tumors.