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Updated: Feb 26, 2026
Transoral Robotic Total Thyroidectomy and Bilateral Central Regional Lymph Node Dissection for Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma
Published on: September 15, 2023
Radioactive Iodine Ablation Decrease Recurrences in Papillary Thyroid Microcarcinoma with Lateral Lymph Node
Shuai Xue1, Peisong Wang1, Jia Liu1
1Department of Thyroid Surgery, The 1st Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, 130021, People's Republic of China.
Introduction:
We aimed to carry out a retrospective study from a single institution to determine whether radioactive iodine (RAI) ablation decreases the risk of recurrence of papillary thyroid microcarcinoma (PTMC) patients that presented with lateral lymph node metastasis (LLNM).
Methods:
We retrospectively analyzed a total of 6361 consecutive PTMC patients who initially underwent surgery for the treatment of thyroid carcinoma at the First Hospital of Jilin University, between January 2005 and February 2015. Altogether, 137 patients with PTMC with LLNM have been enrolled in our study.
Results:
The disease-free survival period was significantly shorter for the RAI (-) patients than for the RAI (+) patients (p = 0.0074 by the log-rank test). The disease-free survival rates at 5 and 10 years were 93.02 and 87.5%, respectively, in the RAI (-) group and 100 and 96.81%, respectively, in the RAI (+) group. CLNM ratio and LLNM ratio were factors identified for multivariate analysis by Cox's proportional hazards method yielding risk ratios of 7.281 [CI 1.804-17.554; p = 0.010] and 1.157 [CI 1.0125-9.381; p = 0.048] in the RAI (-) group.
Conclusion:
Taken together, RAI may be beneficial for PTMC with LLNM, especially when CLNM ratio or LLNM ratio was greater than 0.5.
