Lymph Node Ratio Predicts Recurrence in Patients with Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma with Low Lymph Node Yield

Abstract

The American Thyroid Association risk stratification system suggests that having >5 metastatic lymph nodes (LNs) increase the recurrence risk in patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC). However, little is known about PTC with n = 675) and high-LNR (n = 234) groups was 0.29 (AUC = 0.676, 95% CI = 0.591–0.761, p p < 0.001). Multivariate analysis using Cox regression revealed that tumor size and LNR ≥ 0.29 were independent prognostic factors for recurrence. Therefore, LNR can be utilized to stratify the risk of recurrence in patients with low-LNY PTC.

Keywords

• papillary thyroid carcinoma
• lymph node ratio
• lymph node yield
• recurrence