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The Thymus: A Comprehensive Review¹

¹ From the Departments of Radiology (M.N., P.M.B., H.H.), Thoracic Surgery (S.K.A., R.L.T.), and Pathology (O.N.K.), Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, 330 Brookline Ave, Boston, MA 02215. Presented as an education exhibit at the 2004 RSNA Annual Meeting. Received December 22, 2004; revision requested May 9, 2005, and received June 8; accepted September 22. All authors have no financial relationships to disclose. Address correspondence to M.N. (e-mail: mnishino{at}bidmc.harvard.edu).

Since first being described as such by Galen of Pergamum (130–200 AD), the thymus has remained an "organ of mystery" throughout the 2000-year history of medicine. The thymus reaches its maximum weight in puberty and subsequently undergoes involution, and thus is hardly an eye-catching structure on imaging studies performed in healthy adults. However, once there has been involvement of the thymus by a disease process, the gland demonstrates a variety of clinical and radiologic manifestations that require comprehensive understanding of each entity. Furthermore, it is important for radiologists to be familiar with the current World Health Organization histologic classification scheme for thymic epithelial tumors and to understand its clinical-pathologic, radiologic, and prognostic features.

© RSNA, 2006

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