Case Report: Paraneoplastic psoriasis in thymic carcinoma

Abstract

Thymic carcinomas are exceedingly rare and very aggressive malignancies of the anterior mediastinum. While thymomas exhibit a high association with paraneoplastic syndromes, these phenomena are a rarity in thymic carcinomas. In general, acanthotic syndromes such as acroceratosis neoplastica and acanthosis nigricans maligna are commonly observed as paraneoplastic phenomena in patients with carcinomas. In contrast, psoriasis vulgaris, another acanthotic disease, rarely occurs as a paraneoplasia. We report the case of a 36-year-old patient with progressive thymic carcinoma (undifferentiated carcinoma, T3N2M1a) and paraneoplastic psoriasis occurring ten months before the initial diagnosis of the carcinoma. Over the course of the disease, new psoriatic flares heralded relapse or progression of the carcinoma. To our knowledge, this is the first reported case of paraneoplastic psoriasis in thymic carcinoma.

Hide-and-Seek With Spindle-Cell-Component-Poor Metaplastic Thymoma

“…Paraneoplastic psoriasis has only been described in a couple of cases regarding thymic tumors [ 7 - 8 ]. The prototypical paraneoplastic syndrome associated with thymoma is myasthenia gravis (MG), with occurrence of 30%-50% in thymoma patients generally [ 9 ].…”