Thymoma with pancytopenia: a case report and review of the literature

Although the most common hematological disturbance in thymoma is pure red cell aplasia, pancytopenia is a very rare paraneoplastic syndrome in this disorder. We only found one case in literature reviews. We report a 36 year old female with an anterior mediastinal mass and severe pancytopenia. With a mediastinotomy incision, biopsy of the tumor was obtained. The report of the pathologist was thymoma of predominant epithelial type. After a median sternotomy, there was complete resection of the tumor with removal of two segments of the right upper lobe and the involved pericardium (stage 3 of Thymoma). Unfortunately, after complete resection of the tumor there was no improvement in the pancytopenia. The patient died because of sepsis about 33 days after operation.