Thymus staging

This article deals with thymus staging. An introduction to staging is in the cancer staging systems article.

Thymic staging, thymus cancer staging, thymic carcinoma staging, and thymus tumour staging redirect here.

Overview

There is a system by Masaoka and colleagues that was subsequently modified, and is known as the modified Masaoka staging system.

Based on CAP protocol

Staging as per Butnor et al.:

Stage	Characteristics
I	encapsulated lesion, tumour does not penetrate capsule
IIa	microscopic penetration of the capsule
IIb	macroscopic penetration of the capsule
III	macroscopic invasion of adjacent organs
IVa	pleural or pericardial spread
IVb	lymphatic or hematogenous spread

Modified Masaoka as per Masaoka et al. (1999)

T-stage - based on Masaoka et al. (1999):

Stage	Features
T1	macroscopically and microscopically encapulated
T2	macroscopic invasion or adhesion to surrounding tissue (fat or pleura) or microscopic invasion into the capsule
T3	Spread to adjacent organs, e.g. pericardium, lung, great vessels.
T4	pericardial or pleural spread

N-stage - based on Masaoka et al. (1999):

Stage	Features
N0	no lymph node spread
N1	spread to anterior mediastinal lymph nodes
N2	spread to intrathoracic lymph nodes other than the mediastinal lymph nodes
N3	spread to supraclavicular lymph nodes

M-stage - based on Masaoka et al. (1999):

Stage	Features
M0	no hematogeneous spread and extrathoracic lymph nodes with the exception of the supraclavicular nodes
M1	hematogeneous spread and/or extrathoracic lymph nodes

See also

• Thymus.