Thymic cysts occur relatively rarely and account for only about 3% of all anterior mediastinal masses.1 Although thymic cysts usually grow very slowly, there have been three reported cases of unilocular thymic cysts that enlarged rapidly as a result of intracystic haemorrhage: two cases occurred in children with aplastic anaemia and one occurred in a 13 year old boy with no other symptoms.2,3 Here, we present a case of a unilocular thymic cyst, which appeared within one year, was associated with chronic inflammation, and had findings different from the cases reported previously.
The patient was a 63 year old man, who had been well with no apparent symptoms of disease. There was no history of trauma. He complained of dull anterior chest pain in April 2001, and a chest x ray film showed an abnormal shadow in the left mediastinum. A chest x ray that had been taken one year before for a routine medical examination had shown no abnormality (fig 1). Computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging showed a unilocular cyst measuring 8 × 6 cm in the left side of the anterior mediastinum (fig 2). The cyst was sharply demarcated from the mediastinal fat. Haematological and laboratory examinations showed no inflammation.
Figure 1.
The chest x ray film taken one year before presentation (left) shows no abnormality, whereas the film taken at presentation (right) shows the abnormal shadow at the left mediastinum.
Figure 2.
Magnetic resonance imaging shows a unilocular cyst 8 × 6 cm in diameter at the left anterior mediastinum.
Thoracoscopic surgery, with a left thoracic approach, was conducted on 8 May 2001. The cyst originated in the thymic tissue and adhered extensively to the left upper lobe of the lung. The cyst and its neighbouring thymic tissue were resected completely.
The cyst contained a brownish fluid, the cytology of which showed numerous old red blood cells with some lymphocytes and macrophages. On gross macroscopic examination, the cyst was unilocular and the cyst wall was of varying thickness up to 5 mm. The whole of the resected material was examined histologically by making 22 sliced sections. The cyst wall was lined mostly with cuboidal epithelium and partially with squamous epithelium, but without respiratory type epithelium. There were scattered thymic tissues and also elongated branching strands of thymic tissue within the wall (fig 3). Reactive lymphoid hyperplasia with a germinal centre was not seen in the thymic tissue. In most areas, the cyst wall was thickened with granulation. The granulation tissue just beneath the intraluminal wall consisted mostly of newly formed blood vessels with lymphocyte and macrophage infiltration. There were few neutrophils. Some areas of the cyst wall showed abundant deposits of haemosiderin pigments. Immunohistochemical examination using anti-CD3 and anti-CD79a antibodies showed that the infiltrating lymphocytes were a mixture of both T and B cells. There was no indication of caseous necrosis or Langhans giant cells. The patient is now doing well without recurrence of the cyst four months after surgery.
Figure 3.
The wall of the cyst contains thymic tissues (large arrow) and also elongated branching strands of thymic tissues within the wall (small arrows) (haematoxylin and eosin stain; original magnification, ×36).
Most thymic cysts are found incidentally during chest x ray or computed tomography procedures, and they usually do not enlarge in a short period. The pathogenesis of thymic cysts is currently thought to be congenital, originating from branchial pouch remnants. However, in our present case the thymic cyst was different from the congenital form because it enlarged rapidly. The cytological and histological findings were also different from those of congenital thymic cysts in the following respects: (1) the fluid within the cyst showed numerous old red blood cells with some lymphocytes and macrophages; and (2) the cyst wall showed non-specific chronic inflammation.
Although the cyst in our present case was unilocular, its pathological features were something like those of a multilocular thymic cyst (MTC), as reported by Suster and Rosai.4 They reported the clinical and pathological features of 18 cases of anterior mediastinal MTC, collected from personnel consultant files. The main histological features of the MTCs included multiple cystic cavities partially lined by squamous, columnar, or cuboidal epithelium; scattered nests of non-neoplastic thymic tissue within the cyst walls; and severe acute and chronic inflammation accompanied by fibrovascular proliferation, necrosis, haemorrhage, and granulation tissue formation. They concluded that the MTCs probably resulted from cystic transformation in the ductal epithelial formations of the branchial pouch or from a related process induced by acquired inflammation. Our present case showed pathological findings similar to those of MTC except that it was unilocular. We believe that, although our present case was not an MTC, it could have originated from a process similar to that leading to MTC development, and could have been enlarged by intracystic haemorrhage as a result of idiopathic, chronic inflammation.
References
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