Prognosis of recurrence in papillary thyroid microcarcinoma based on preoperative examination

Papillary cancer comprises 85-90% of malignant thyroid tumors. About 50% of new cases of papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) are malignant tumors up to 1 cm in size. In Europe, their proportion increased from 18% to 40% over 30 years. This is explained by better diagnosis at earlier stages of disease due to higher quality of ultrasound diagnosis. According to the WHO classification, tumor ≤1 cm is defined as papillary thyroid microcarcinoma (PTMC). In the absence of regional or distant metastases, either follow-up or hemithyroidectomy is recommended. However, tumor metastasis to lymph nodes of the neck is quite common that can contribute to recurrence. Modern ultrasonic diagnosis allows effective preclinical detection of lymph node metastases. In this report, we consider the methods of recurrence detection using retrospective preoperative data in patients who underwent hemithyroidectomy and in whom treatment outcomes are known (presence/absence of recurrence).