Successful Treatment of a Patient with a Thymoma and Pure Red-Cell Aplasia with Octreotide and Prednisone

Thymomas are rare epithelial neoplasms frequently associated with myasthenia gravis, hypogammaglobulinemia, and pure red-cell aplasia.1–11 In pure red-cell aplasia, autoantibodies against early and late erythroid-cell progenitors or erythropoietin, as well as inhibitory cellular immune mechanisms, have been implicated.9–11 Limited information suggests that patients with pure red-cell aplasia and thymoma have a poor prognosis.6,7,10 We recently demonstrated a high uptake of indium-labeled octreotide (111In-DTPA-d-Phe1-octreotide) in thymomas, a phenomenon related to the high content of somatostatin receptors in these tumors.12 The same labeling method has been successful in imaging a wide variety of neuroendocrine tumors.13, . . .