TY - JOUR T1 - Palliative percutaneous cryoablation in a patient with locally advanced invasive thymoma JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J SP - 505 LP - 507 DO - 10.1183/09031936.00072211 VL - 39 IS - 2 AU - Y. Yamauchi AU - Y. Izumi AU - K. Hashimoto AU - H. Yashiro AU - M. Inoue AU - S. Nakatsuka AU - M. Kawamura AU - H. Nomori Y1 - 2012/02/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/39/2/505.abstract N2 - To the Editors:Percutaneous cryoablation is considered to be a minimally invasive option for local treatment of cancer [1–3]. Its efficacy is now being documented in many organs, including the prostate, liver, kidney and lung. The goal of ablation procedures is typically complete local tumour control when surgical resection is not indicated, but ablation procedures, such as cryoablation, may also be applicable to the palliative care of cancer patients. Here, we present a case in which percutaneous cryoablation was considered to have contributed to symptom relief in a patient with unresectable, locally advanced, invasive thymoma of the mediastinum. To our knowledge, this is the first report of a needle ablation procedure performed for a mediastinal tumour.A 29-yr-old female presented with intermittent cough that had existed for 2 yrs and had gradually worsened. An abnormal shadow on chest radiography was identified at another clinic and the patient was referred to our hospital (Division of General Thoracic Surgery, Dept of Surgery, School of Medicine, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan) in July 2004. At that time, she complained of frequent cough and dyspnoea. She could not lay flat on her back. Biopsy through parasternal mediastinotomy [4, 5] was performed, from which the pathological diagnosis was thymoma, type B3, according to the World Health Organization classification. The tumour was considered to be … ER -