Thymic Well Differentiated Neuroendocrine Carcinoma (Carcinoid and Atypical Carcinoid)
Grading / Staging
Grading
- By definition, all are well differentiated
- Nearly all thymic carcinoids qualify as atypical carcinoids (using lung criteria) based on an elevated mitotic rate and the presence of necrosis
Staging
- The same TNM proposed for thymomas has been proposed for thymic neuroendocrine carcinomas:
| pT | |
|---|---|
| pT1 | Completely encapsulated |
| pT2 | Invades through capsule into fat or normal thymus, but not through pleura or pericardium (may be adherent) or into adjacent organs |
| pT3 | Invades through pleura or pericardium or into adjacent organs (great vessels, lung) |
| pT4 | Pleural or pericardial implants |
| pN | |
| pN1 | Metastasis only to anterior mediastinal nodes |
| pN2 | Metastasis to other intrathoracic nodes |
| pN3 | Metastasis to extrathoracic nodes |
| pM | |
| pM1 | With distant metastases |
- From Tsuchiya et al. Pathol Int 1994; 44:506 and Travis WD, Brambilla E, Burke AP, Marx A, Nicholson AG eds. World Health Organization Classification of Tumors. Pathology and genetics of tumors of the lung, pleura, thymus and heart. IARC Press: Lyon 2015
