Tumores del timo y cirugía

introduction: the tumors of thymus account for less than 1 % of all neoplasms and the choice treatment is the surgery. objectives: to know the type of surgical treatment and the magnitude of resection, as well as the relationship with the tumor size, bleeding, surgical time and morbidity and mortality. methods: a prospective study was conducted in 20 patients presenting with mediastinum tumor with surgery criteria over the admission in the services of neurology or general surgery of the "hermanos ameijeiras" clinical surgical hospital from january, 2007 to february, 2009. results are showed in percentages and variables relation chi2 was the test used. results: twelve patients were of female sex (54.5 %). the more applied treatment was the total sternotomy in 9 patients (40.9 %), surgical time varied from 50 to 260 min with a mean of 127.5, whereas the bleeding over of 100 ml was associated with a surgical time from 61 to 180 min (p= 0.036). eleven patients have complications (50 %) with a death (4.5 %). the tumor size varied from 3.5 to 20 cm. the patients with neuroendocrine tumor have a relapse at 10 months, whereas in patients with thymoma until now there was neither relapse nor metastatic activity. conclusion: surgery is the more important step in the treatment of mediastinum tumors and in most of them it is possible a total resection despite its size and the relationship with neighbouring structures.