Local recurrence of papillary thyroid cancer

Management of advanced papillary thyroid cancer (PTC >10 mm) is changing its focus. Mortality was the main outcome measure for patients treated before the 90s. In the past two decades, however, most patients diagnosed with PTC belong to the very low risk of death group. On the other hand, local recurrence of PTC remains a clinical problem, with rates up to 25% depending on the presence of nodal metastasis, tumor diameter, and the skill of the surgeon to completely remove the primary tumor and the associated lymph node metastasis at first-time thyroidectomy. After optimized surgery (total thyroidectomy plus central neck dissection), radioiodine ablation has very little influence on lymph node recurrence that now presents mostly as lateral neck node metastasis that was overlooked or incompletely resected at the time of initial surgery.