The prognosis of papillary thyroid cancer is much more optimistic than other tumors because of its good differentiation. If no lymph node metastasis is found intraoperatively and postoperatively, 90-95% of patients can be cured in the long term. 5-10% of patients can have recurrence. There are two scenarios: 1. 80-90% of patients with recurrence may have local recurrence (75% of recurrence foci are in local lymph nodes and the other 25% in the thyroid bed) and 10-30% of these patients will eventually die of the disease. 2. 10-20% of patients with recurrence have distant metastases (or local recurrence) and 50-90% of these patients will eventually die of the disease.