Middle mediastinal thymic carcinoma with cystic findings in radiologic images: a case report

BACKGROUND Thymic carcinomas are usually detected in the anterior mediastinum. Thymic carcinoma occurring in the middle mediastinum and showing an image of a cyst is extremely rare. CASE PRESENTATION A 64-year-old man with a middle mediastinal tumor detected incidentally by a CT scan was referred. Chest CT showed an entirely cystic mass in the middle mediastinum between the bilateral brachiocephalic vein and trachea. We resected the tumor completely in the right recurrent nerve because it had invaded the nerve. Immunohistochemical features showed a thymic carcinoma pattern. The final diagnosis was thymic squamous cell carcinoma occurring in the middle mediastinum. CONCLUSION To our best knowledge, this is the first report of a thymic carcinoma occurring in the middle mediastinum, as demonstrated by histopathological findings with immunohistochemical features.