Current Research

Research for thymoma is ongoing. The following advances may still be under investigation in clinical trials and may not be approved or available at this time. Always discuss all diagnostic and treatment options with your doctor.

Drug combinations. Drugs used in chemotherapy work in different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. Combining more than one drug may help to eliminate more tumor cells. The combination of carboplatin (Paraplatin) and paclitaxel (Taxol) is being studied for the treatment of advanced thymoma.

New agents.These therapies are being explored in clinical trials:

• Pemetrexed (Alimta) is an antifolate antineoplastic agent being investigated for treating advanced thymic cancers.
  
  
• Imatinib (Gleevec) is a drug that turns off an enzyme that causes cells to become cancerous and multiply. It is being studied to treat patients with thymic tumors over-expressing the c-kit and/or PDGF genes.