Pretracheal Lymph Node Subdivision in Predicting Contralateral Central Lymph Node Metastasis for Unilateral Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma: Preliminary Results
Qiang Chen, Yang Liu, Wei Lü, Lingyun Zhang, Anping Su, Feng Liu, Jingqiang Zhu
Abstract
Background: The aims of this study were to assess the clinical value of pretracheal lymph node subdivision in identifying patients with contralateral central lymph node metastasis (CLNM) and risk factors for occult contralateral CLNM in unilateral PTC. Methods: A total of 139 unilateral PTC patients with a clinically node-negative neck (cN0) who underwent bilateral central neck dissection (CND) were prospectively enrolled. Intraoperatively, the pretracheal region was further divided into ipsilateral and contralateral subregions. Ipsilateral and contralateral pretracheal lymph nodes (LNs) as well as other CLNs (prelaryngeal, ipsilateral paratracheal and contralateral paratracheal) were labeled separately and sent for pathological examination. Demographic and clinicopathologic variables were analyzed to identify factors predictive of contralateral CLNM. Results: = 0.006, odds ratio = 3.362) were identified as risk factors for contralateral CLNM. Neither neck recurrence nor distant metastasis was observed within the mean follow-up duration of 9.1 ± 1.8 months. Conclusions: In most unilateral cN0 PTCs, performing ipsilateral CND is appropriate, while patients presenting with evident nodal disease intraoperatively or preoperatively in the contralateral central neck should undergo bilateral CND. Intraoperative re-evaluation of prelaryngeal and contralateral pretracheal LNs may be helpful in determining the extent of CND.