What Is the Role of Surgery in Relapsed Thymic Tumors? An Overview of a Very Debated Issue

Recurrent thymic neoplasms are still a debated issue: some authors, including ourselves, in general advocate for repeated surgical procedures [1, 2], whereas others prefer treatment alternatives to operation [3]. The recent report from Bott and coworkers [4] concludes that repeated surgical procedures should be indicated only in very selected cases of recurrent thymic neoplasms. We wish to challenge what seems to us a too-conservative attitude, albeit we completely agree that the indication (or not) for operation in recurrent thymic neoplasms is so far based on insubstantial and unsubstantiated evidence.