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INTRODUCTION AND IMPORTANCE: Diagnosis and treatment of rare diseases are challenging because experience and evidence are limited. Primary tracheal tumors have a low prevalence but awareness of these is important to avoid misdiagnoses. We present a first case of a tracheal microcystic reticular schwannoma in which diagnosis and treatment recommendations were revised several times resulting in months of anxious uncertainty for the patient before complete resection and extensive histopathologic examination were performed. CASE PRESENTATION: A 65-year old woman complained about coughing and cervical pain. Tomographies revealed a tumor of the dorsolateral trachea. After repeated biopsies pathologists and tumorboards in different hospitals could not agree on diagnosis or treatment recommendation, so the impatient patient opted for a complete resection for definite treatment. CLINICAL DISCUSSION: Neoplasms of the posterior mediastinum are mainly neurogenic. In rare cases they may originate in the trachea and can be difficult to differentiate from other tumor entities if only biopsies are available. Although the preoperative diagnosis was unclear, tracheal resection was performed successfully. The differential diagnoses of soft tissue sarcoma or myoepithelioma were discarded and a benign, microcystic, reticular schwannoma was confirmed by international reference pathologists. CONCLUSION: Microcystic, reticular schwannoma is a rare variant and may occur in the trachea. Diagnosis of such rare neoplasms can be difficult, resulting in delayed or suboptimal treatment. Often biopsies are not sufficient to reach a definite diagnosis. But even without preoperative histology, tracheal resection is a safe and feasible option for definitive treatment with very low recurrence rates.
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OBJECTIVES: Resection of thymic tumours including the removal of both the tumour and the thymus gland (thymothymectomy; TT) is the procedure of choice and is recommended in most relevant articles in the literature. Nevertheless, in recent years, some authors have suggested that resection of the tumour (simple thymomectomy; ST) may suffice from an oncological standpoint in patients with early-stage thymoma who do not have myasthenia gravis (MG) (non-MG). The goal of our study was to compare the short- and long-term outcomes of ST versus TT in non-MG early-stage thymomas using the European Society of Thoracic Surgeons thymic database. METHODS: A total of 498 non-MG patients with pathological stage I thymoma were included in the study. TT was performed in 466 (93.6%) of 498 patients who had surgery with curative intent; ST was done in 32 (6.4%). The completeness of resection, the rate of complications, the 30-day mortality, the overall recurrence and the freedom from recurrence were compared. We performed crude and propensity score-adjusted comparisons by surgical approach (ST vs TT). RESULTS: TT showed the same rate of postoperative complications, 30-day mortality and postoperative length of stay as ST. The 5-year overall survival rate was 89% in the TT group and 55% in the ST group. The 5-year freedom from recurrence was 96% in the TT group and 79% in the ST group. CONCLUSION: Patients with early-stage thymoma without MG who have a TT show significantly better freedom from recurrence than those who have an ST, without an increase in postoperative morbidity rate.