In the United States in 1993 the American Cancer Society estimated that there were about 1,300,000 new cases of invasive cancer diagnosed. At the time of presentation about 70% of those patients represented limited local regional disease without evidences of distant dissemination. About 30% of the patients had demonstrated metastatic disease at the time of initial diagnosis or about 390,000 patients. Of those patients with local regional disease about 56% would be cured by the best treatme...

Primary mediastinal tumors are relatively rare. The relative incidence of these tumors indicates that neurogenic tumors are the most common tumor seen constituting 21 % of all cases, thymomas 19%, lymphomas 12.5%, germ cell tumors 10%, primary carcinomas 4.6%, mesenchymal tumors 6%, endocrine tumors 6%, cysts 18%. In adults, the majority of thyroid tumors, thymomas, mediastinal germ cell tumors and teratomas are located in the superior and anterior mediastinum. Of the neurogenic tumors 18%...