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Background:

The extent of surgery for papillary thyroid cancers (PTC) remains controversial. Consensus guidelines have recommended total thyroidectomy for PTC≥ 1 cm; however, no study has supported this recommendation based on a survival advantage. The objective of this study was to examine whether the extent of surgery affects outcomes for PTC and to determine whether a size threshold could be identified above which total thyroidectomy is associated with improved outcomes.

Methods:

From the National Cancer Data Base (1985–1998), 52,173 patients underwent surgery for PTC. Survival was estimated by the Kaplan-Meier method and compared using log-rank tests. Cox Proportional Hazards modeling stratified by tumor size was used to assess the impact of surgical extent on outcomes and to identify a tumor size threshold above which total thyroidectomy is associated with an improvement in …