The mediastinum is the cavity between your lungs that contains your heart and its blood vessels, part of your windpipe and your thymus gland. Lung cancers typically spread to the lymph nodes in the mediastinum.
The most common types of mediastinal tumors include:
- Thymus: Your thymus gland is part of your immune system, which helps protect your body from infection. The main types of thymus tumors are thymomas (develop on the surface of the thymus gland), thymic carcinoma (an aggressive, recurrent cancer), and thymic carcinoids (neuroendocrine cancers).
- Lymphomas: Cancers of the lymph glands can develop in the mediastinum either as the primary cancer or as part of more widespread disease.
- Neurogenic tumors: These begin in cells that make up the nervous system. In adults, most of these are noncancerous tumors that can be treated successfully with surgery.
- Germ cell tumors: These form from embryologically immature cells.
- Mesenchymal tumors: These develop from mesenchymal cells, a type of stem cell in the connective tissue. Sarcoma is a type of mesenchymal cell cancer.
Why Choose Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center?
Sylvester is an NCI-designated cancer center. Early detection of lung cancer with a low-dose computed tomography (CT) and expert multidisciplinary care can potentially boosts lung cancer survival rates by 20% in high-risk patients.
Robotic video-assisted surgery program ranked among top 10 in the Southeast. Our excellent surgeons use robotic video-assisted technology to improve patient outcomes, including decreased blood loss in surgery, shorter hospital stays, and higher survival rates on average for appropriate patients.Advanced radiation oncology tools. Sylvester offers leading-edge tools that target tumors with pinpoint accuracy, including Proton Therapy, ViewRay® MRI-guided radiation therapy, and RapidArc® intensity-modulated external radiation therapy (IMRT). These image-guided radiation tools provide more effective treatments, shorter treatment times, and less damage to surrounding healthy tissue.