Manchanda S, Bhalla AS, Jana M, Gupta AK. Imaging of the pediatric thymus: Clinicoradiologic approach. World J Clin Pediatr 2017; 6(1): 10-23 [PMID: 28224091 DOI: 10.5409/wjcp.v6.i1.10]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Ashu S Bhalla, MD, MAMS, FICR, Professor, Department of Radiodiagnosis, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Ansari Nagar, New Delhi 110088, India. ashubhalla1@yahoo.com
Research Domain of This Article
Radiology, Nuclear Medicine & Medical Imaging
Article-Type of This Article
Minireviews
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Clin Pediatr. Feb 8, 2017; 6(1): 10-23 Published online Feb 8, 2017. doi: 10.5409/wjcp.v6.i1.10
Imaging of the pediatric thymus: Clinicoradiologic approach
Smita Manchanda, Ashu S Bhalla, Manisha Jana, Arun K Gupta
Smita Manchanda, Ashu S Bhalla, Manisha Jana, Arun K Gupta, Department of Radiodiagnosis, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi 110088, India
Author contributions: Manchanda S and Bhalla AS contributed equally to this work; Manchanda S contributed to literature search, manuscript preparation and editing; Bhalla AS contributed to literature review, manuscript editing and figure preparation; Jana M and Gupta AK contributed to manuscript editing and figure preparation.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There is no conflict of interest associated with any of the senior author or other coauthors contributing their efforts in this manuscript.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Correspondence to: Ashu S Bhalla, MD, MAMS, FICR, Professor, Department of Radiodiagnosis, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Ansari Nagar, New Delhi 110088, India. ashubhalla1@yahoo.com
Telephone: +91-011-26594925 Fax: +91-011-26584366
Received: May 8, 2016 Peer-review started: May 10, 2016 First decision: July 25, 2016 Revised: September 29, 2016 Accepted: November 21, 2016 Article in press: November 22, 2016 Published online: February 8, 2017
Abstract
The thymus is a lymphatic organ that undergoes dynamic changes with age and disease. It is important to be familiar with these physiological changes in the thymus gland to be able to identify pathology and make an accurate diagnosis. The thymus may be involved in multisystem disorders or show focal isolated lesions. The aim of this article is to review the radiological anatomy of the thymus, normal variants, and pathology including hyperplasia and benign/malignant lesions involving the thymus gland in the pediatric age group. We also propose an algorithmic approach for imaging evaluation of a suspected thymic mass on the basis of morphologic features.
Core tip: It is important for clinicians to be able to identify normal variations in thymic appearance and avoid over-investigation. However, it is equally important to have a high index of suspicion for abnormal thymus especially in multisystem disorders. We discuss normal variants, hyperplasia and focal masses; and propose an algorithmic approach to the evaluation of a suspected thymic mass based on imaging morphology.
