High-Dose RAI Therapy Justified by Pathological N1a Disease Revealed by Prophylactic Central Neck Dissection for cN0 Papillary Thyroid Cancer Patients: Is it Superior to Low-Dose RAI Therapy?

Objective One of the presumed advantages of prophylactic central neck dissection (pCND) is offering staging basis for more aggressive radioactive iodine (RAI) therapy, which postulates the necessity of high dose for treatment efficacy. The present study aims to compare the effectiveness between low-dose and high-dose RAI in a select cohort of cN0 papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) patients with pathological N1a (pN1a) disease revealed by pCND in terms of ablation rate and response to therapy. The frequency of short-term adverse effects between the two groups was also compared.