Introduction:

Mediastinal neoplasms are rare tumours; they can appear at any age and they are usually discovered incidentally on a routine chest radiograph in asymptomatic patients.

Objective:

To characterize patients operated on mediastinal tumours according to selected clinical, epidemiological and diagnostic variables.

Methods:

An observational, descriptive study of a series of cases with 37 patients admitted and operated with diagnosis of mediastinal tumour in the General Surgery Service of the Provincial Teaching "Saturnino Lora" Hospital from Santiago de Cuba, during the years 2010 to 2017.

Results:

The female sex predominated with 23 patients and the age interval between 31 and 40 years (11 cases). The most common symptoms were chest pain, cough and dyspnea. The posterior compartment was the most affected (11 patients), as well as the tumors with sizes between 7 and 9 cm (17 cases). The most used diagnostic means were computed tomography, bronchoscopy and mediastinoscopy. Malignant histological varieties prevailed (54.1 %).

Conclusions:

The definitive diagnosis is usually established by postoperative histopathological study, although computed tomography associated or not with percutaneous biopsy is the gold standard for preoperative diagnosis. Malignant histological varieties are related with characteristics of the affected organ.

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