Metastatic lymph node status in the central compartment of papillary thyroid carcinoma: A prognostic factor of locoregional recurrence.

BACKGROUND The purpose of this study was to present our focus on the lymph node status in the central compartment and evaluate the relevant factors and disease recurrence. METHODS Between January 2004 and December 2009, 1040 patients were diagnosed with papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) and underwent surgery. RESULTS The number of metastatic lymph nodes was a significant predictor for recurrence conferring a hazard ratio of 1.36 (confidence interval = 1.103-1.680; p = .004). The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was calculated to determine the cutoff number of lymph nodes that predicted recurrence with the highest sensitivity and specificity (area under the ROC curve, 0.794; SE, 0.077; p = .001). The sensitivity/specificity of >3 metastatic lymph nodes for predicting recurrence was 63.6%/77.0%, respectively. CONCLUSION The number of metastatic lymph nodes in the central compartment was a statistical significant predictive factor associated with disease recurrence. Further study is required to confirm the relationship between the number of lymph nodes and disease recurrence. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Head Neck 38: E1172-E1176, 2016.