Abstract:Objective To investigate the predictive effect of thyroid tumor characteristics on lateral lymph node metastasis in patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma. Methods A total of 509 cases of patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma who underwent surgical treatment in our hospital from January 2017 to December 2020 were retrospectively analyzed. According to the pathological diagnosis, a total of 178 patients had lateral lymph node metastasis, while another 331 patients did not. Multivariate binary Logistic regression was used to analyze the influencing factors of lateral lymph node metastasis in patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma. Results Comparing the data of patients with and without lateral lymph node metastasis, it was found that the proportion of patients with lateral lymph node metastasis who were younger than 40 years old, the largest tumor diameter >2cm, the number of metastatic lymph nodes in the central region >5, multifocality and no BRAF mutation was significantly higher than those without metastasis (P<0.05). The results of multivariate binary logistic retrospective analysis showed that the maximum tumor diameter >2cm (P=0.000, OR=3.482, 95%CI: 1.482-5.642), the number of metastatic lymph nodes in the central region >5 (P=0.000, OR=6.583, 95%CI: 2.384-12.373), multifocality (P=0.032, OR=3.473, 95%CI: 1.387-8.684), and the negative of BRAF mutations (P=0.000, OR=3.952, 95%CI: 1.489-9.572) are independent risk factors for lateral lymph node metastasis from papillary thyroid carcinoma. Conclusion The maximum tumor diameter >2cm, the number of metastatic lymph nodes in the central region >5, multifocality and the negative of BRAF mutation were independent risk factors for cervical lymph node metastasis in patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma.