The European Society of Thoracic Surgeons (ESTS) thymic database

The European Society of Thoracic Surgeons (ESTS) thymic database is a satellite database of the ESTS registry collecting patients with thymic tumors (thymomas, thymic carcinomas and neuroendocrine thymic tumors) among the ESTS Institutions. The database is free of charge for any ESTS member, easily accessible to any ESTS institution, web-based, prospective, periodically maintained and updated. It may serve as an institutional database for the storage of data about patients with thymic tumors at no cost for each participating institution. It may be used by any ESTS member to propose studies using one of the largest thymic databases worldwide. The present review focuses on the history and the development of the ESTS thymic database (retrospective and prospective) and its structure with a particular reference to the concept of the minimum dataset and the Clinical Care Analysis (CCA) box. A brief overview about the role of the ESTS thymic database in the global effort for the new TNM staging system of thymic tumors is also provided. In the supplementary, there are clear instructions to get access to the thymic database using the ESTS official website. The ESTS thymic database represents a powerful tool available to all ESTS members which can be used for studies on the management of these rare tumors.