American Thyroid Association Design and Feasibility of a Prospective Randomized Controlled Trial of Prophylactic Central Lymph Node Dissection for Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma

Abstract

Given the low rates of both newly identified structural disease and morbidity after surgery for cN0 PTC, prohibitively large sample sizes would be required for sufficient statistical power to demonstrate significant differences in outcomes. Thus, a prospective randomized controlled trial of prophylactic central lymph node dissection in cN0 PTC is not readily feasible.