Circulating immune complexes were assayed employing the method recently described by Barnett and Chia in a group of patients with myasthenia gravis. The subjects were classified according to clinical severity and immune complexes were sought before and after thymectomy. The operated subjects were further divided into those with thymoma or thymic hyperplasia. Antigenantibody complexes were highe...

Minimally invasive surgery has replaced median sternotomy for resectable anterior mediastinal masses and is performed by various approaches. We developed a new minimally invasive surgical procedure by combining the subxiphoid approach performed through a midline camera port with the use of a robotic surgery system (Intuitive Surgical, Sunnyvale, CA, USA). A 3-cm transverse incision was made 1 c...

Thymectomy was performed on 249 patients with myasthenia gravis between 1957 and 1981. During a follow-up period that ranged from 2 months to 24 years (mean 7.5 years), the remission rate for the entire group was 51 percent, and an additional 36 percent had improvement (87 percent benefited). In those 51 patients with thymoma, the remission rate was 37 percent, with 68 percent of the patients b...

Access from the right chest is generally easier. In this case however, the thymoma was predominantly left-sided and therefore a left-sided approach was preferred. The anesthetist places a double lumen tube to allow isolation of the required lung. The patient is placed with the chest elevated to an angle of around 30 degrees. This allows the plane between the sternum and thymus to be developed e...

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to analyze the effect of the surgical approach on surgical and neurologic outcomes after extended thymectomy for myasthenia gravis. METHODS A retrospective analysis of the institutional extended thymectomies for myasthenia gravis within the last decade was performed. Patients of group A (open access by total median sternotomy; n=10; 1996-2002) and of group ...

Various organ-specific autoimmune diseases can be readily induced in some strains of mice by thymectomy during the critical neonatal period (NTx), 1 on day 2-4 after birth, without any exogenous sensitization with autoantigen (I-4). ~t is assumed in this model that NTx may eliminate T cells that would otherwis6 ontogenically peripherize via the thymus after the day of thymectomy (Tx), and may c...

Introduction: Spontaneous regression of a thymoma is an unusual and rare phenomenon witnessed across the field thoracic medicine. Presentation Case: A 33-year-old man presented with persistent right shoulder pain shortness breath which started 1 month prior to hospital visit. Computed tomography chest was done showed 11.0 cm anterior mediastinal mass bilateral pleural effusion. The refused surg...