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Objectives: Our goal was to evaluate the effect of thymectomy on the progression of thymolipomatous myasthenia gravis., Methods: An electronic search performed across PubMed, MEDLINE and Web of Science databases included all article types. We included 15 series comprising 36 cases that met specific criteria, including case reports or case series related to thymolipoma with a myasthenia gravis association, where thymectomy was cited as the primary intervention with postoperative reporting of the prognosis and articles written in the English language., Results: Our study included 17 men (47.2%) and 19 women (52.8%). Tumour sizes varied between 34 × 18 × 7 cm and 2.8 × 2.3 × 1.9 cm; the weight of the tumours ranged between 38 and 1780 g (mean 190, standard deviation 341). The surgical approaches were a median sternotomy in 29 patients (80.6%), a thoracotomy in 1 patient (2.8%), video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery in 2 patients (5.6%) and unreported approaches in 4 (11.1%) patients. The disease was entirely resolved with complete, stable remission in 5 patients (13.9%); symptoms were improved in 19 (52.8%) and stable in 10 patients (27.7%). We identified 2 groups of patients according to their improvement post-thymectomy (improved group and group with no change)., Conclusions: Although the cases were uncontrolled and did not demonstrate strong associations, they do support some hypotheses. We found a significant statistical difference between the 2 groups in terms of age, because younger patients tended to improve to a greater degree post-thymectomy. Also, we found that female patients with thymoma visible on the imaging scans were significantly associated with post-thymectomy myasthenia gravis improvement., Registration Number in Prospero: CRD42020173229., (© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery.)

Thyrolipoma and thymolipoma are rare neoplasms of the thyroid gland and thymus, respectively. Their simultaneous occurrence is exceptional. Up to now, only 2 cases have been reported in literature in 1966 and in 1997. For the first time, we report the occurrence of both neoplasms associated with myasthenia gravis in a 64-year-old woman. The value of this case report lies not only in the fact that it allows us to speculate on the presence of a syndrome but also because a complete radiological work-up (computed tomography scanner, magnetic resonance imaging, Positron emission tomography (PET) with fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG)) is reported., (© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery. All rights reserved.)

Objectives: Although significant improvement in myasthenic symptoms has been reported following the removal of thymolipomas, information on surgical outcomes among patients with thymolipomatous myasthenia gravis (MG) is limited., Methods: This was a retrospective review of patients who underwent extended thymectomy for treatment of MG., Results: From 1995 to 2010, 267 patients with MG underwent extended thymectomy, including 104 with thymomatous MG, 151 with non-thymomatous MG and 12 (4.4%) with thymolipoma. The mean duration of myasthenic symptoms before surgery was greatest in the thymolipomatous group (P < 0.001). The lowest mean age (36.1 years old, P < 0.001) and the lowest preoperative serum anti-acetylcholine receptor antibody titre (P = 0.015) occurred in the non-thymomatous group. More thymic and adipose tissue was removed from the thymolipomatous group compared with the non-thymomatous group (P < 0.001). Regarding surgical outcomes, the rate of stable remission was higher in the non-thymomatous (42.3%) and thymolipomatous (41.7%) groups compared with the thymomatous group (28.8%, P = 0.029). No instances of postoperative exacerbation of MG or tumour recurrence were noted during the postoperative follow-up of patients treated for thymolipoma., Conclusions: Our results suggest that patients with myasthenia thymolipomatous have surgical outcomes similar to those of patients with non-thymomatous MG and have a mean age at the time of surgery similar to that of patients with thymomatous MG.