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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2024 Feb 3.
Published in final edited form as: N Engl J Med. 2023 Aug 3;389(5):406–417. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2302892

Figure 2. Effect of Thymectomy on the Long-Term Risk of Cancer.

Figure 2.

Panel A shows the relative risk of cancer among patients who had undergone thymectomy as compared with age-, race-, and sex-matched controls in the first 5 years after surgery, both in the overall study population and in subgroups. The relative risk of cancer within 5 years was increased in patients who had undergone thymectomy, regardless of whether they had a preoperative history of infection, cancer, or autoimmune disease. Panels B and C show the percentages of patients who survived without cancer over a period of 20 years after surgery in the group with no exclusions (Panel B) and in the subgroup in which patients with a preoperative history of infection, cancer, or autoimmune disease were excluded from the analysis. The insets show the same data on an expanded y axis.