Abstract
Primary thymic neuroendocrine carcinomas are tumors of rare occurrence. The histopathological features present in this family of tumors recapitulate those seen in other organs such as the lung or the gastrointestinal system. The criterion for diagnosis is the same as the one used in other areas where these tumors are more common. In addition, the classification of these tumors has been reported to have meaningful impact when stratified into tumors of low-grade, intermediate-grade, and high-grade malignancy. Nevertheless, a more recent classification of tumors by the World Health Organization divided these tumors into two categories of low- and high-grade malignancy. This presentation on thymic neuroendocrine carcinomas highlights the important issues around proper classification of these thymic tumors as well as the most important differential diagnosis of neuroendocrine carcinomas from other tumors, particularly primary mediastinal tumors that may also share similar immunophenotype.
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Moran, C.A., Suster, S. (2010). Neuroendocrine Carcinomas of the Thymus. In: Lloyd, R. (eds) Endocrine Pathology:. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1069-1_21
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1069-1_21
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