School of Medicine Department of Thoracic Surgery, University of Torino, Italy.
School of Medicine Department of Thoracic Surgery, University of Torino, Italy.
Lung Cancer. 2014 Feb;83(2):126-32. doi: 10.1016/j.lungcan.2013.09.013. Epub 2013 Oct 15.
Thymic epithelial tumors (thymomas, thymic carcinomas and neuroendocrine tumors - NETs) are rare primary mediastinal neoplasms, recently classified as orphan diseases. Their rarity might explain the fact that currently, no official staging system has been defined by the Union Internationale Contre le Cancer (UICC) and the American Joint Commission on Cancer (AJCC). However, the appropriate staging of these tumors has been matter of debate and several proposals have been published over the years, but very few have received a clinical validation. Recently an international database for thymic malignancies has been provided by the International Thymic Malignancy Interest Group (ITMIG); one of its aims is to accomplish a new and evidence based staging system, to allow progress in clinical management in thymic tumors. This paper will review the history of proposed staging systems, comparing resemblances and differences, being a sort of starting point for the development of a new widely accepted clinical staging system.
胸腺上皮肿瘤（胸腺瘤、胸腺癌和神经内分泌肿瘤-NETs）是罕见的原发性纵隔肿瘤，最近被归类为孤儿病。它们的罕见性可能解释了一个事实，即目前国际癌症联合会（UICC）和美国癌症联合委员会（AJCC）尚未定义官方的分期系统。然而，这些肿瘤的适当分期一直是争议的问题，多年来已经提出了几个建议，但很少有得到临床验证。最近，国际胸腺恶性肿瘤兴趣小组（ITMIG）提供了一个胸腺恶性肿瘤的国际数据库；其目的之一是制定一个新的、基于证据的分期系统，以促进胸腺肿瘤的临床管理进展。本文将回顾提出的分期系统的历史，比较相似之处和不同之处，为开发一个新的、广泛接受的临床分期系统提供一个起点。
