A risk factor is anything that affects your chance of getting a disease such as cancer. Different cancers have different risk factors. For example, exposing the skin to strong sunlight is a risk factor for skin cancer. Smoking is a risk factor for cancers of the lung, larynx (voice box), mouth, throat, esophagus, kidneys, bladder, and several other organs.

But risk factors don't tell us everything. Having a known risk factor, or even several risk factors, does not mean that you will get the disease. And many people who get the disease may not have had any known risk factors.

No specific inherited, environmental, or lifestyle risk factors have been strongly linked to thymoma or thymic carcinoma. Some studies have suggested a possible link with exposure to radiation to the upper chest area, but this has not been confirmed.

Last Medical Review: 05/18/2009
Last Revised: 05/18/2009