Thymoma and Thymic Carcinoma Treatment and Survival Rate

April 11, 2026

This page was reviewed under our medical and editorial policy by Amanda Reyes, M.D., Medical Oncologist, City of Hope^® Cancer Center Duarte. 

Thymus cancer develops in the cells of the thymus gland, a small organ behind the breastbone and above the heart. The thymus gland plays a role in producing T cells for the body’s immune system.

The two most common types of thymus cancer are thymoma and thymic carcinoma. When a patient is diagnosed with thymus cancer, his or her cancer care team develops a personalized treatment plan that takes into account factors such as the cancer’s type and stage, as well as the patient’s overall health.

Characteristics That Affect Treatment Options

Before creating a treatment plan for thymus cancer, a patient’s care team usually performs tests and procedures to find out more about the unique characteristics of a patient’s cancer, including:

• What type and subtype of thymus cancer it is — for instance, thymoma or a thymic carcinoma
• How this subtype of thymus cancer is classified, based on its pathology (how the tumor’s cells look under a microscope)
• Whether this type of thymus cancer is slow-growing or more aggressive
• The cancer’s stage
• Whether the cancer has spread from its original location to nearby tissue or other parts of the body

Stages

Staging cancer is the process of using tests to determine how far a patient’s cancer has spread and then assigning the cancer a stage number that reflects this information. Thymus cancer is staged using the TNM system, which looks at the size of the tumor (T), whether it has spread to nearby lymph nodes (N) and whether it has spread, or metastasized (M), to other parts of the body, as detailed below.

Stage 1 thymoma or thymic carcinoma: At this stage, the cancer may be confined to its original site or have spread to surrounding tissue. The tumor may be less than 5 centimeters (cm) in size or larger.

Stage 2 thymoma or thymic carcinoma: At this stage, the cancer has spread from its original site to nearby tissue of the lung, the pericardium (the sac around the heart) the phrenic nerve. It has not spread to lymph nodes or distant sites.

Stage 3 thymoma or thymic carcinoma: At this stage, the cancer has spread from its original site to tissue in the chest wall, lungs, windpipe, food pipe or veins. It has not spread to lymph nodes or distant sites.

Stage 4 thymoma or thymic carcinoma: At this stage, the cancer may have spread to any of the areas mentioned above, to other distant organs or tissue or to the lymph nodes.

Thymoma and Thymic Carcinoma Treatments

If cancer may be removed surgically, it is referred to as resectable. If not, it is called non-resectable cancer. The first step in creating an effective treatment plan for thymoma or thymic carcinoma is to determine whether a patient’s cancer is resectable or not and whether the patient is healthy enough for surgery. Treatment options are listed below.

Surgery: This is the first and most common treatment option for resectable thymus cancer. In most cases, doctors perform a thymectomy, which is a procedure to remove the entire thymus gland. Surrounding tissue may also be removed, if surgeons believe that the cancer has spread to this tissue.

Radiation therapy: This may be used after surgery if a patient has resectable thymus cancer depending on the presence or absence of certain risk factors. It may also be used to treat non-resectable thymus cancer. During radiation therapy, powerful beams of radiation are used to target and destroy cancer cells.

Chemotherapy and other medications: These options may be recommended before surgery, with the goal of shrinking a tumor and thereby making the tumor resectable. Chemotherapy may also be used after surgery to destroy any remaining cancer cells that are in the body. For patients with non-resectable thymus cancer, chemotherapy with or without radiation may be the definitive treatment option. Chemotherapy and other systemic therapies are also used in recurrent disease that is not amenable to surgery or radiation therapy or in metastatic disease that has spread to distant sites. Given the rarity of this tumor type, systemic treatments are limited and clinical trials are recommended in refractory cases.

Who Treats Thymomas and Thymic Carcinomas?

Patients with thymoma or thymic carcinoma are cared for by a multidisciplinary team with expertise in cancers of the thoracic cavity, like thymomas and thymic carcinoma, including:

• Thoracic surgeons, who are trained in performing surgery to remove cancer from the thoracic area
• Radiation oncologists with expertise in advanced radiation techniques for treating cancer
• Medical oncologists with expert training in using medications to treat cancer
• Pathologists, who evaluate biopsies, tissue samples and tumors to help accurately diagnose cancer
• Pulmonologists, who treat and manage respiratory conditions and diseases of the lungs
• Neurologists and neuro-oncologists, who have expertise in disorders of the nervous system
• Endocrinologists, who help diagnose and treat conditions related to the hormone-producing system
• Specialized pharmacies, which supply medications that are difficult to find elsewhere, often for hard-to-treat conditions
• Supportive medicine providers, who manage cancer- and treatment-related side effects and symptoms

Thymoma and Thymic Carcinoma Survival Rates

Thymus cancers in general are rare. Thymoma and thymic carcinoma also have very different survival rates, since thymoma is a slower-growing type of cancer, while thymic carcinoma may be slow- or fast-growing. The American Cancer Society (ACS) tracks survival rates for all types of thymus cancers, based on whether a patient’s thymus cancer is localized (has not spread from its original site), regional (has spread to nearby tissues) or distant (has spread to distant organs). According to the ACS:

• The overall five-year survival rate for thymus cancers is 75%
• The five-year survival rate for localized thymus cancers is 94%
• The five-year survival rate for regional thymus cancers is 79%
• The five-year survival rate for distant thymus cancers is 42%