An Adolescent with Graves’ Disease and Thymic Hyperplasia

Abstract

A 14-year-old female presented to our hospital for a second opinion regarding a recent diagnosis of Graves' disease and a mediastinal mass. Four months prior to presentation, the patient developed difficulty with concentration. Historically she had been an A/B student; however, her school performance worsened suddenly, and she almost failed the eighth grade. One month later, she began complaining of increased sweating, diarrhea, difficulty with balance, jitteriness, and difficulty sitting still. During the previous 2 months, she had an increased appetite along with a 10-lb weight gain, increased hair loss, fatigue, and dry skin. Two weeks prior to her presentation, her mother noted that she had a "large neck mass." At that time, the patient complained of dysphagia and tenderness of the anterior neck on palpation, but she had no respiratory difficulties. In addition, she had no symptoms of fever or night sweats.

Thymic hyperplasia in patients with Graves’ disease

“…In addition to the 92 cases discussed by Deforges-Bullet et al [9], we found another 15 case reports of thymic enlargements associated with GD published to date [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22]. Only 4 of these 107 cases in all were diagnosed as thymic malignancies (three thymomas and one T lymphoblastic lymphoma/leukemia [19][20][21]), while TH was confirmed in all the other cases.…”