Evidence map›Paper›PMID 39730963›Full record

ArticleAnnals of surgical oncology2025

Prognostic Impact of Primary Tumor Size in Thymic Epithelial Tumor: An NCDB-Based Study.

Asato Hashinokuchi, Shinkichi Takamori, Junjia Zhu, Miyuki Abe, Keigo Ozono, Tomoyoshi Takenaka, Atsushi Osoegawa, Tomoharu Yoshizumi, Takefumi Komiya

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Article in Annals of surgical oncology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
9citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

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Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

9 citing papers in PubMed.

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4 · The record

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PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

9 authors.

Asato HashinokuchiDepartment of Surgery and Science, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan.
Shinkichi TakamoriDepartment of Thoracic and Breast Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Oita University, Oita, Japan. shinkichi.takamori@gmail.com.
Junjia ZhuDepartment of Public Health Sciences, Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, PA, USA.
Miyuki AbeDepartment of Thoracic and Breast Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Oita University, Oita, Japan.
Keigo OzonoDivision of Cancer Therapy and Research, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan.
Tomoyoshi TakenakaDepartment of Surgery and Science, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan.
Atsushi OsoegawaDepartment of Thoracic and Breast Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Oita University, Oita, Japan.
Tomoharu YoshizumiDepartment of Surgery and Science, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan.
Takefumi KomiyaDivision of Hematology Oncology, Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, PA, USA.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundThymic epithelial tumor (TET) staging has been based on Masaoka-Koga systems or the 8th edition of the TNM classification, which do not use tumor size as a T descriptor. The 9th edition of the TNM classification incorporates tumor size; however, the study on which this classification is based included only 4.4% of patients from North America. This study investigated the prognostic impact of primary tumor size in TET patients in the US population.

methodsUsing data from the National Cancer Database (NCDB), we analyzed patients with surgically resected TETs diagnosed in 2004-2020. Survival analysis was performed by using the Kaplan-Meier method and multivariate Cox regression analyses; propensity score matching (PSM) analyses were performed. Thymoma data from our facilities (n = 166) were used for validation.

resultsOf 4,151 and 647 thymoma and thymic-carcinoma patients, respectively, we classified 1,618 and 268 patients into small-tumor (primary tumor size ≤ 5 cm) and large-tumor groups, respectively. Thymoma patients in the small-tumor group had a significantly longer overall survival (OS) than those in the large-tumor group (>5 cm) (median OS 193.2 vs. 161.4 months, respectively; log-rank P < 0.0001; hazard ratio 0.72; 95% confidence interval 0.64-0.82). After PSM, multivariate analysis showed that tumor size was an independent prognostic factor for OS (P < 0.0001). Validation cohort analysis supported these results. Tumor size did not have a significant impact on OS (P = 0.0994) in thymic-carcinoma patients.

conclusionsTumor size in thymoma, but not in thymic carcinoma, was an important prognostic factor in the U.S. POPULATION:

Indexed as

Neoplasms, Glandular and EpithelialThymomaThymus NeoplasmsAdultAgedDatabases, FactualFemaleFollow-Up StudiesHumansMaleMiddle AgedNeoplasm StagingPrognosisSurvival RateTumor BurdenYoung AdultNational cancer databaseStage classificationThymic carcinomaThymic epithelial tumorThymoma

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PMID39730963

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.