Prognostic Value of Tumor Deposits for Patients With Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma

Tumor deposits (TD), nodules in the peritumoral adipose tissue with no architectural residue of lymph node, which is a definition often being confusing to the extranodal extension (ENE), have been described in several malignancies and linked to a worse prognosis. In gastric cancer and colon cancer, TD and ENE should be distinguished and collected separately in 8th AJCC manual. However, in thyroid cancer, TD as a collection variable was absence in both the 8th AJCC manual and the 2015 ATA guideline. This is a study that revealed the presence of TD by reviewing a large number of papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) specimens and explored its prognostic value by constructing a nomogram to accurately predict disease-free survival in PTC patients.