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Type A and type AB thymoma are the indolent end of thymoma, tumours of the thymus gland made of spindle-shaped epithelial cells (type A) or mixed with lymphocyte-rich areas (type AB), mostly in older adults and driven by a GTF2I mutation. Nine in ten are found at an early stage and almost none come back after complete surgery, so surgery alone is usually the whole treatment.
The WHO classification of thymic tumours divides thymoma into types A, AB, B1, B2 and B3 (with rare others), and the ITMIG consensus refined the criteria at the A/AB borderland and proposed the term atypical type A thymoma for tumours with increased mitoses or necrosis (Marx 2014). In the worldwide database, type A made up 12 percent and, with type AB, occurred at a higher age (64 and 57 years); 90 percent of type A were stage I or II, and recurrence after resection was 1 to 2 percent for types A and AB against 2 to 7 percent for B1 to B3 (Weis 2015). The GTF2I L424H mutation, characteristic of types A and AB, is recorded on the parent page. Atypical type A components can rarely metastasise, as in a case with lung and brain metastases 10 and 15 years after diagnosis (Journal of Thoracic Disease 2017).
How it differs from its parent: the parent page covers all thymoma types and their staging; types A and AB are the oldest patients, the earliest stages, the lowest recurrence and the GTF2I-mutant biology, and paraneoplastic myasthenia gravis is less frequent than with the B types.
How common: about 12 percent (type A) of thymomas, with type AB a further large share (Weis 2015).
Treatment: complete surgical resection; postoperative radiotherapy only for incompletely resected or stage III disease as on the parent page; systemic therapy is rarely needed and follows the parent's platinum-based regimens when it is.
Type A is the least common thymoma at 12 percent of 4,221 thymomas in the ITMIG worldwide database, with type AB also common in Europe and the United States and both rarer in Asia; patients are older (64 and 57 years) than with other thymomas (Weis 2015).
Central tumours arise in the large airways, peripheral ones in the alveoli; both drain to hilar then mediastinal nodes, and the pleural lining is a separate cancer site.
Same organ: Mediastinal germ cell tumour, Pleuropulmonary blastoma (types I, Ir, II and III), Type B1 and type B2 thymoma, Type B3 thymoma, Micronodular thymoma with lymphoid stroma, Adenocarcinoma of the lung, Squamous cell carcinoma of the lung, Large cell carcinoma of the lung, Sarcomatoid carcinoma of the lung, Adenosquamous carcinoma of the lung, Invasive mucinous adenocarcinoma of the lung, Adenocarcinoma in situ and minimally invasive adenocarcinoma of the lung, Basaloid squamous cell carcinoma of the lung, Lymphoepithelial carcinoma of the lung, Pulmonary blastoma (adult), Non-small-cell lung cancer, Lung cancer (all types), Small-cell lung cancer, Mesothelioma, Pleural mesothelioma, Thymoma and thymic carcinoma, Childhood lung and airway tumours (pleuropulmonary blastoma, tracheobronchial tumours), Inflammatory myofibroblastic tumour (IMT), EGFR-mutated non-small-cell lung cancer, ALK-positive non-small-cell lung cancer, KRAS G12C-mutant non-small-cell lung cancer, ROS1-positive non-small-cell lung cancer, MET exon 14 and MET-amplified non-small-cell lung cancer, RET fusion-positive non-small-cell lung cancer, BRAF V600E-mutant non-small-cell lung cancer, HER2-mutant non-small-cell lung cancer, NTRK fusion-positive non-small-cell lung cancer, PD-L1-high non-small-cell lung cancer without a driver mutation, Resectable stage I to III non-small-cell lung cancer, Unresectable stage III non-small-cell lung cancer, Limited-stage small-cell lung cancer, Extensive-stage small-cell lung cancer, Lung neuroendocrine tumours (typical and atypical carcinoid), Thymoma (WHO types A, AB, B1, B2 and B3), Thymic carcinoma
Complete resection; postoperative radiotherapy for incomplete resection or stage III as on the parent page; systemic therapy rarely needed.
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Query for this cancer: (TITLE:"Type A and type AB thymoma" OR ABSTRACT:"Type A and type AB thymoma" OR TITLE:"Type A thymoma" OR ABSTRACT:"Type A thymoma" OR TITLE:"Type AB thymoma" OR ABSTRACT:"Type AB thymoma" OR TITLE:"Spindle cell thymoma" OR ABSTRACT:"Spindle cell thymoma" OR TITLE:"Mixed thymoma" OR ABSTRACT:"Mixed thymoma" OR TITLE:"Atypical type A thymoma" OR ABSTRACT:"Atypical type A thymoma") AND (treatment OR therapy OR trial OR survival OR diagnosis). Results are unfiltered search hits about Type A and type AB thymoma, not a curated reading list.
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