Clinical predictors of lymph node metastasis and survival rate in papillary thyroid microcarcinoma: analysis of 3607 patients at a single institution

Background The treatment of papillary thyroid microcarcinoma (PTMC) patients is controversial, as PTMC is often found incidentally and its prognosis is quite good. Because lymph node metastasis (LNM) is one of the main predictors of recurrence and impacts the survival rate of PTMC patients, this study aims to retrospectively identify the clinical factors that increase the risk of LNM and/or recurrence and can then be used to separate clinically...