[Treatment strategy for patients with papillary microcarcinoma]

Recently incidental detection of papillary microcarcinoma (PMC) by means of ultrasonography (US) has increased. It is still controversial how to deal with PMC in this situation. The mortality rate of patients with PMC is generally very low, and most PMC is regarded as "innocent" cancer. However, there are a few patients with PMC that show unfavorable outcome associated with clinically evident nodal metastasis, extrathyroidal invasion and/or distant metastasis. It is important to classify patients with PMC into high-risk and low-risk group when determining the treatment method. In this paper, we introduce our strategy for patients with asymptomatic PMC, including non-surgical follow-up based on patients' informed decision.