Engel P, Pilsgaard B, Francis D
Department of Pathology, Bispebjerg Hospital, Copenhagen, Denmark.
APMIS. 1995 Sep;103(9):671-8.
The morphological heterogeneity of thymomas has caused much confusion respecting their classification. Recently Kirchner & Müller-Hermelink (4) proposed a histological subclassification which has been claimed to represent an independent prognostic factor: medullary and mixed thymomas are benign; organoid and cortical type as well as well-differentiated thymic carcinomas are low-grade malignant tumors, which have the capacity to recur and spread, even if they are clinically benign. High-grade malignant thymomas are always malignant. We present the clinicopathological data on 10 clinically benign and 14 clinically malignant thymomas. Having reclassified the thymomas, we found four low-grade malignant examples among the clinically benign thymomas. It is important to identify this group of patients as they are at risk of tumor recurrence. However, further investigation is needed to support the validity of this subclassification system.
胸腺瘤的形态学异质性给其分类带来了诸多困惑。最近，基希纳和米勒 - 赫尔梅林克（4）提出了一种组织学亚分类方法，该方法据称是一个独立的预后因素：髓质型和混合型胸腺瘤为良性；类器官型和皮质型以及高分化胸腺癌是低级别恶性肿瘤，即使临床上表现为良性，它们也有复发和扩散的能力。高级别恶性胸腺瘤则始终是恶性的。我们展示了10例临床良性胸腺瘤和14例临床恶性胸腺瘤的临床病理数据。在对胸腺瘤重新分类后，我们在临床良性胸腺瘤中发现了4例低级别恶性病例。识别出这组患者很重要，因为他们有肿瘤复发的风险。然而，需要进一步研究来支持这种亚分类系统的有效性。
