MRI characteristics of papillary thyroid carcinoma for the prediction of cervical lymph node metastasis

Cervical lymph node metastasis is a known prognostic factor in PTC. However, the greatest controversy hampering the routine application of prophylactic central neck dissection is the increased risk of complications in thyroidectomy. In this study, we sought to investigate MRI features for predicting cervical lymph node metastasis in papillary thyroid carcinoma. This study revealed a prediction model built from thyroid contour protrusion sign and poorly tumor margin in contrast enhanced imaging constituted an effective tool for predicting PTC with cervical LNM, which was not reported in previous studies. Meanwhile, age and tumor size could be helpful to distinguish between node-negative and node-positive papillary thyroid cancers.