Dr. Giaccone on the Challenge of Diagnosing Thymic Cancers

Giuseppe Giaconne, MD, PhD, is professor of medicine and associate director of clinical research at the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medicine, in New York, New York.

Cancers of the thymus, a small organ located in the mediastinum above the heart, affect 400 to 600 Americans annually. Giaconne said the disease can be difficult to classify histologically, so the actual incidence is unclear.

He added that the rareness of the disease means that few pathologists have experience detecting thymic cancer. As such, only major cancer centers have good experience classifying these maligancies.