An Incidental Finding of a Giant Mediastinal Mass on CXR: Report of a Thymolipoma

Thymolipoma is a very rare benign neoplasm of the thymus. We present the case of a 34-year-old female with a massive mediastinal tumor discovered on a chest X-ray after a car accident. The patient had no complaints and her physical examination was unremarkable. Chest CT scans revealed a lipomatous mass containing areas of soft tissue density in the anterior mediastinum. After discovering the mediastinal mass، patient was asked about any related symptom، and she mentioned just chest discomfort، which she did not consider it as a problem and so did not visit a physician. CT guided biopsy of the mass revealed thymic tissue associated with a prominent fatty component. The patient was submitted to median sternotomy، which resulted in the complete excision of the tumor. The pathological diagnosis was thymolipoma with degenerative changes. Thymolipoma usually attains enormous dimensions by the time of diagnosis، are usually asymptomatic، and the occasional symptoms are related to the compression of adjacent structures. Surgical resection is the treatment of choice and offers the only possibility of cure.