A recent article published in the American Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (JCEM) (Ruel E, Thomas S, Dinan M, Perkins JM, Roman SA, Sosa JA. Adjuvant radioactive iodine therapy is associated with improved survival for patients with intermediate-risk papillary thyroid cancer. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2015 Apr;100(4):1529-36.) confirms that iodine-131 therapy improves survival in patients with intermediate-risk papillary thyroid cancer. It provides an important reference for whether those patients with postoperative thyroid cancer should receive iodine-131 therapy. The abstract of the paper is as follows: Papillary thyroid cancer is the most common endocrine tumor with a good long-term prognosis. However, the benefit of adjuvant iodine-131 therapy in patients with intermediate-risk papillary thyroid cancer is controversial due to lack of data support. A total of 21,870 patients in the American Cancer Data Bank with intermediate-risk papillary thyroid cancer who underwent total thyroidectomy between 1998 and 2006 were enrolled in the study. According to the ATA (American Thyroid Association) and AJCC (American Cancer Society) definitions, intermediate risk includes the following two types: 1. T3 (tumor confined to the thyroid gland with a maximum diameter >100 px or with microscopic extrathyroidal invasion, regardless of tumor size), N0 (no lymph node metastasis), M0 or Mx (no distant metastasis or distant metastasis not evaluated); 2. T1-3 (tumor confined to the thyroid gland with a maximum diameter >100 px or with microscopic extrathyroidal invasion, regardless of tumor size); 2. T1-3 (tumor confined to the thyroid gland with a maximum diameter ≤100px), N1 (with lymph node metastasis), M0, or Mx (no distant metastasis or distant metastasis not evaluated). Invasive subtypes and multifocal papillary thyroid cancer were not included in this study. A total of 15,418 patients (70.5%) who received adjuvant iodine-131 treatment and 6,452 patients (29.5%) who did not receive this treatment were found. The average follow-up time was 6 years, with a maximum of 14 years. Overall, adjuvant treatment with iodine-131 significantly improved the overall survival of patients (P < 0.001). Subgroup analysis suggested the same results both in the younger patient subgroup (age below 45 years, 12,612 cases, P = 0.002) and in the older group (age > 65 years, 2,122 cases, P = 0 .008). In a multifactorial analysis adjusted for demographic and clinical characteristics, adjuvant treatment with iodine-131 reduced the risk of death by 29% (P < 0.001). For younger patients under 45 years of age, the treatment reduced the risk of death by 36% (P = 0.016). As the first national study, this study confirms that adjuvant iodine-131 therapy improves survival in patients with intermediate-risk papillary thyroid cancer. We recommend that patients with intermediate-risk papillary thyroid cancer should be considered for adjuvant iodine-131 therapy.