Cytological Diagnosis of Mediastinal Thymoma in a 25 Year Male: A Case Report

Introduction: Thymoma is a rare benign tumor with a largely indolent growth pattern. Anterior mediastinal mass is the commonest clinical presentation. It is to be distinguished from invasive thymoma i.e. thymic carcinoma by the presence of cellular features of malignancy and a greater incidence of local invasion and embolic metastases. Case presentation: We report a case of thymoma in a 25 year male who presented with chest pain. CT scan showed a mass in anterior mediastinum. Guided fine needle aspiration was done to arrive at a diagnosis. Conclusion: Thymic epithelial neoplasm constituents: Thymoma, Thymic carcinoid and Thymic carcinoma. These are sensitive to both chemo and radiotherapy. A cytologic diagnosis of thymoma is extremely challenging. In part, this is because the tumor is uncommon and aspirates are infrequently encountered, epithelial cells may be difficult to recognize in lymphoid rich smears and there is inherent sampling error in a tumor that frequently displays heterogeneous histopathology.