Central neck dissection in thyroid cancer

The impact of metastasized cervical lymph nodes (CLN) identified on central neck dissection (CND) in treating papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) and the extent of CND needed to reduce recurrence has not been established. Alzahrani and Xing assessed CLN metastasis and BRAF mutation in PTC by analysing data from 379 consecutive PTC patients who underwent thyroidectomy with or without CND. Increasingly aggressive tumour characteristics were found as the extent of CND was advanced, resulting in disease recurrence or persistence. BRAF mutations were more common in more extensive CND.

Read the full article in Alzahrani and Xing (2013) Endocrine-Related Cancer 20 13—22 DOI: 10.1530/ERC-12-0309.