Uniportal video-assisted thoracic surgery approach for simultaneous lung cancer and thymic carcinoma: Case report and literature review

Thymic carcinoma is an epithelial tumor derived from thymic epithelial cells. Thymic tumors may be associated with other simultaneous and/or metachronous extra-thymic tumors (e.g., lung cancer). Here, we report a case of simultaneous surgical management of lung and mediastinal neoplasm together with a review of the literature. During radiological follow-up for prostate and colorectal cancer, an 82-year-old man was diagnosed with lung cancer with simultaneous mediastinal suspected neoplasm. Both were surgically removed with a single intervention performed via a uniportal video-assisted thoracic surgery (uni-VATS) approach. The literature emphasizes how extra-thymic cancer can be diagnosed before, concurrently and consecutively with thymic neoplasia. The surgical treatment of such simultaneous cancer is challenging. We succeeded in the excision of both neoplasia with a mini-invasive surgical technique. This report highlights the feasibility of uniportal VATS in a patient with very unusual clinical and oncological history.