Postoperative radiotherapy may significantly improve survival of patients undergoing surgery for thymic carcinoma; however, the quality of available evidence is low. We performed a meta-analysis encompassing 973 patients to investigate the effect of postoperative radiotherapy on survival outcomes of thymic carcinoma, and included our analysis of the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database. The pooled hazard ratio of postoperative radiotherapy was 0.66 (95% confidence interval: 0.54 to 0.80, p < 0.001) for overall survival and 0.54 (95% confidence interval: 0.41 to 0.71, p < 0.001) for progression-free survival. The balance of best available evidence suggests that postoperative radiotherapy after resection of thymic carcinoma is associated with improved overall and progression-free survival.
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