ORIGINAL ARTICLE Clinical Outcome of Video-Assisted

We reviewed our experience of video-assisted thoracoscopic thymectomy for myasthenia gravis and thymomas in 119 patients, aged 12–83 years, who were treated between 1998 and 2007. Disease severity was graded using the Osserman classifi-cation. To prevent rupture of the tumor capsule and tumor seeding, thymomas were resected using a modified no-touch technique. Thymoma diameters were 10–90 mm (mean, 50 mm). There were no operative deaths, 12 (10%) patients had complications, and 87 (73.1%) improved by 1 or more Osserman grades postoperatively. After follow-up of 1.9–10 years (mean, 4.9 years), 74 (62%) patients remained asymptom-atic, with 21 % in complete stable remission. Using multivariate regression analysis, there were no statistical differences in median pre- and postoperative Osserman grades with regards to age, sex, duration of symptoms, and presence of thymoma. Video-assisted thoracoscopic thymectomy for myasthenia gravis and selected thymomas can achieve long-term clinical outcomes comparable to those of standard approaches