ReviewMediastinum (Hong Kong, China)2026
Role of radiotherapy in thymoma and thymic carcinoma: a narrative review.
Review in Mediastinum (Hong Kong, China), 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background and Objective: Thymic epithelial tumors, comprising thymoma and thymic carcinoma, are rare and heterogeneous neoplasms for which high-level evidence is limited. Radiotherapy is integral across the disease continuum-from postoperative settings to definitive therapy for unresectable tumors and oligometastatic/recurrent disease. This narrative review synthesizes contemporary evidence and guidance on indications, technique, dose prescription, outcomes, and toxicity, with focused discussion of hypofractionation and stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT). Methods: A comprehensive PubMed search (1 November 2025) combined MeSH and free-text terms for thymic tumors and radiotherapy without date restriction. English-language human studies of any design were eligible. Titles/abstracts and full texts were screened independently by the author; reference lists of key studies and recent reviews were hand-searched to ensure completeness. Key Content and Findings: For completely resected early-stage thymoma, surgery alone often suffices, whereas postoperative radiotherapy (PORT) is generally favored for positive margins (R1/R2), advanced stages (III-IV) and unfavorable pathological finding. Meta-analyses increasingly suggest overall survival benefit from PORT in stage III-IV thymoma and in thymic carcinoma, with more variable findings for stage II disease. In thymic carcinoma, multi-institutional series demonstrate a clearer association between PORT and improved survival. For unresectable disease, concurrent chemoradiation using modern conformal techniques achieves high response rates and meaningful survival. Dose recommendations across international guidelines converge on 45-50 Gy (R0), 50-54 Gy (R1), and 60-70 Gy (R2), with elective nodal irradiation generally discouraged. Conclusions: Current data support PORT for high-risk features and thymic carcinoma, definitive chemoradiation for unresectable disease, and carefully selected use of hypofractionation/SBRT for limited recurrences. Priorities include randomized evaluation of PORT in borderline settings, harmonized reporting of toxicity and quality of life, and prospective study of modality selection to optimize cure while minimizing late effects.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.