Table 1.
Baseline demographic and clinical characteristics of the study group
| Characteristic | Total | % | Men | % | Women | % | P‐value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total number of patients, n | 188 | 92 | 48.7 | 96 | 51.3 | ||
| Age (years) | 54.3 (16–84) | 51.7 | 56.9 | 0.009 | |||
| Symptoms of disease | 110 | 58.5 | 57 | 6.6 | 53 | 55.2 | 0.3 |
| Myasthenia | 47 | 25 | 26 | 28.2 | 21 | 22.0 | 0.37 |
| WHO performance status | |||||||
|
0 1 2 Missing data |
54 120 10 4 |
29 65.2 5.4 |
27 57 6 |
29 64 6.7 |
28 63 4 |
30 66.3 4.2 |
0.74 |
| Concomitant diseases † | 105 | 55.8 | 46 | 50 | 59 | 61.5 | 0.13 |
| Other neoplasms | 19 | 10 | 9 | 9.7 | 13 | 7.0 | |
| Other autoimmune diseases | 18 | 9.5 | 6 | 6.5 | 12 | 12.5 | 0.17 |
| Weight loss >10% | 38 | 20 | 18 | 19.5 | 20 | 20.8 | |
| Hb concentration (g/dL) | 12.51 ± 2.21 | 12.87 ± 2.62 | 12.19 ± 2.6 | 0.03 | |||
| LDH activity (IU/L) | 170 (150–200) | 165 (146–200) | 170 (150–220) | 0.17 | |||
| Masaoka clinical stage | |||||||
|
I II III IV |
14 99 42 33 |
7.5 53 22.5 17 |
6 48 21 17 |
6.6 52.2 22.8 18.4 |
8 51 21 16 |
8.4 53.1 21.9 16.6 |
0.95 |
| Histological type according to the WHO classification ‡ | |||||||
|
A AB B1 B2 B3 Thymic carcinoma § Unspecified/other |
10 52 26 31 20 42 6 |
5.3 27.6 13.8 16.5 10.6 22.3 3.2 |
|||||
|
Site of metastases Pleura Lungs Lymph nodes Bones Liver Central nervous system Other |
20 7 25 3 3 1 2 |
10 3.7 13 1.5 1.5 <1 <1 |
Hypertension (n = 96; 51.1%), coronary artery disease (n = 35; 18.6%), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (n = 23; 12.2%), diabetes (n = 9; 4.7%), kidney failure (n = 4; 2.1%).
Patients with tumor type assessed according to previous classifications (primarily according to the Muller‐Hermelink classification; medullary, mixed, organoid, cortical, well‐differentiated thymic cancer 12 ) were assigned to one of the WHO categories, based on the analysis of the pathological description.
Included five patients with carcinoid.