Advances in diagnosis and treatment strategies of thymic carcinoid

摘要：Thymic carcinoid is a rare neuroendocrine tumor with unclear risk factors and controversial classifications. Its clinical manifestations vary from asymptomatic to many nonspecific symp-toms, among which endocrine abnormality seems to be associated with poor prognosis. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of ACTH and prognosis could become a topic in the future. Image studies show no specificity both in CT and PET/CT, but are of great val-ue in clinical staging of thymic carcinoid. Ki67 has been found to be a powerful tool for grading neuroendocrine tumors and further studies should be made. The diagnosis of thymic carcinoid mainly depends on pathology and immunohistochemistry plays a key role in differential diagnosis at present. Radical resection is the first choice in treatment, and target therapy becomes possible with the development in molecular pathology. However, since the rarity of thymic carcinoid, there is no practical clinical staging or standard guideline to instruct clinical practice. Thus, support of Interna-tional Thymic Malignancy Interest Group ( ITMIG) seems to be of great significance in case collection and resource sharing of thymic diseases. In this paper, we are going to put forward a strategy a-vailable in clinical application for diagnoisis and treatment of thy-mic carcinoid by using a new clinical staging system.