The remarkable antitumor efficacy of corticosteroid treatment in patients with refractory thymomas

Background Some case reports have found that corticosteroid treatments shrunk thymoma lesions remarkably after the failure of chemotherapy or surgery. However, few studies have comprehensibly evaluated the antitumor effects of corticosteroids in patients with invasive thymomas. Methods We reviewed the medical records of 13 consecutively enrolled patients with locally advanced or metastatic thymomas treated via corticosteroid monotherapies from January 2010 to March 2021 in our institute. A Cox's proportional hazard model and the Kaplan-Meier method were used to identify factors associated with survival. Results The median follow-up time was 26 months (range, 13–115 months). The median initial dose of corticosteroid was 0.90 mg/kg/day prednisolone equivalent (range, 0.4–1.1 mg/kg/day). Of the 13 cases, 7 (53.8%, 95% CI: 0.25–0.81) exhibited a partial response and 5 (38.5%, 95% CI: 0.14–0.68) stable disease. The median progression-free survival was 5.7 months [95% confidence interval (CI): 1.5–9.6 months]. The median overall survival was 25.3 months (95% CI: 7.1–not attained). The median duration of corticosteroid use was 3 months (range, 1–64 months). Patients with WHO subtype B thymomas exhibited a better overall response rate to corticosteroids than did patients with other disease subtypes (75%, 95% CI: 0.19–0.99). Adverse events of Grade 3 or more were not observed. Conclusions Corticosteroids are clinically valuable for patients with thymomas.