A thymic neuroendocrine tumour in a young female: a rare cause of relapsing and remitting Cushing’s syndrome

Abstract

Ectopic corticotrophin (ACTH) secretion should always be considered in the diagnostic workup of young patients with Cushing's syndromeThere is a small but growing body of literature describing the correlation between ectopic ACTH secretion and thymic neuroendocrine tumours (NETs)The possibility of a MEN-1 syndrome should be considered in all patients with thymic NETs, and we note the observational association with male gender and cigarette smoking in this cohortAn exception to these associations is the finding of relatively high incidence of thymic NETs among female non-smoking MEN-1 patients in the Japanese compared with Western populationsThe relapsing and remitting course of our patient's symptoms is noteworthy, given the paucity of this finding among other published cases.