Researchers recommend against this routine operation which would increase the risk of cancer.
- Removal of the thymus is proposed for certain pathologies such as myasthenia gravis.
- According to a new study, removing this organ would be bad for your health.
- The risk of death, cancer and autoimmune diseases would be greater in people who no longer have a thymus.
It is a small gland located in the upper part of the thorax, under the sternum and between the lungs: the thymus. According to Canadian Cancer Societythis organ has the role of producing T lymphocytes, that is to say the cells which help the body’s immune system.
Removal of the thymus, an operation which can cause cancer
According to a new study published in the journal New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), removal of the thymus could be harmful to patients’ health.
“The function of the thymus in the human adult is unclear and routine removal is performed as part of various surgical procedures“, explain the authors. There myasthenia gravis is a condition for which doctors may suggest removal of the thymus.
In their research, the scientists studied health data from 1,420 participants who had had their thymus gland removed and 6,021 people who still had this organ, called control patients.
Cancer: a higher risk of death due to cancerremoval of the thymus
The researchers’ goal was to estimate the number of cancers, autoimmune diseases and deaths that occurred among participants. Result, five years after removal of the thymus:
- Greater risk of mortality (8% compared to 2.8% in the control group).
- Increased risk of cancer (7.4% versus 3.7% in the control group).
- Greater risk of autoimmune diseases.
- Decreased production of T lymphocytes.
- Higher rates of pro-inflammatory cytokines in the blood.
The authors explain that these results may be linked to the loss of effectiveness of the immune system due to removal of the thymus, “but there is insufficient data to speculate on the biological processes involved in these results“, explain the scientists in a academic article.
“The magnitude of mortality and cancer in thymectomy patients was the biggest surprise to me, explains Kameron Kooshesh, one of the authors, in a communicated. The results suggested to us that the absence of the thymus appears to disrupt fundamental aspects of immune function.“Nevertheless, further studies need to be conducted to corroborate these findings.
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