- Case report
- Open access
- Published:
Respiratory failure in a patient with treated thymoma: A blast from the past
Egyptian Journal of Bronchology volume 11, pages 168–170 (2017)
Abstract
Thymomas are among the most common anterior mediastinal tumors that can uncommonly present with respiratory failure. This case discusses the development of type II respiratory failure in a patient with a history of treated and cured thymoma. The problem posed and the workup leading to the diagnosis is discussed in detail. Further, the possible and reported causes of respiratory failure in such a case has also been highlighted.
References
Pascuzzi RM, Phillips LH II, Johns TR, Lennon VA. The prevalence of electrophysiological and immunological abnormalities in asymptomatic relatives of patients with myasthenia gravis. Ann N Y Acad Sci 1987; 505:407–415.
Younger DS, Worrall BB, Penn AS. Myasthenia gravis: historical perspective and overview. Neurology 1997; 48:S1–S7.
Safieddine N, Liu G, Cuningham K, Ming T, Hwang D, Brade A, et al. Prognostic factors for cure, recurrence and long-term survival after surgical resection of thymoma. J Thorac Oncol 2014; 9: 1018–1022.
Kim WH, Kim JH, Kim EK, Yun SP, Kim KK, Kim WC, et al. Myasthenia gravis presenting as isolated respiratory failure: a case report. Korean J Intern Med 2010; 25:101–104.
Soleimani A, Moayyeri A, Akhondzadeh S, Sadatsafavi M, Tavakoli Shalmani H, Soltanzadeh A. Frequency of myasthenic crisis in relation to thymectomy in generalized myasthenia gravis: a 17-year experience. BMC Neurol 2004; 4:12.
Zueras R, Casas JI, Tarradell R, Fernández JA, Villar JM. Acute respiratory insufficiency following thymectomy: an unusual cause [in Spanish]. Rev Esp Anestesiol Reanim 1989; 36:51–53.
Ostrowska M, de Carvalho M. Prognosis of phrenic nerve injury following thoracic interventions: four new cases and a review. Clin Neurol Neurosurg 2012; 114:199–204.
Rini BI, Gajewski TF. Polymyositis with respiratory muscle weakness requiring mechanical ventilation in a patient with metastatic thymoma treated with octreotide. Ann Oncol 1999; 10:973–979.
Xie G, Li L, Liu H, Xu K, Zhu Y. Diffuse panbronchiolitis complicated with thymoma: a report of 2 cases with literature review. Chin Med J (Engl) 2003; 116:1723–1727.
Colaco C, Colaco B, Mittadodla PS, Badireddi S. Respiratory failure in a patient with metastatic thymoma and myasthenia gravis: a therapeutic challenge. Am J Respir Crit Care Med 2014; 189:A2928.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work noncommercially, as long as the author is credited and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.
Rights and permissions
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
About this article
Cite this article
Ray, A., Nangia, V., Chatterji, R. et al. Respiratory failure in a patient with treated thymoma: A blast from the past. Egypt J Bronchol 11, 168–170 (2017). https://doi.org/10.4103/ejb.ejb_71_16
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4103/ejb.ejb_71_16