Application of Carbon Nanoparticle Tracers in the Lateral Neck Lymph Nodes of CN1bx Patients with Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma

This study aimed to investigate the applicability of carbon nanoparticle tracers in the lateral neck lymph nodes of CN1bx patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma surgery. 73 patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma at our hospital between January 2019 to December 2019 were suspected metastasis in the lateral neck lymph node before surgical treatment. During the operation, carbon nanoparticle tracers were used as black staining tracers for the lateral neck lymph nodes to detect metastasis in each Compartment of the neck. The lateral Compartment is defined as level ll-V The black-stained lymph nodes, dyed by Carbon nanoparticle tracers, and non-dyed lymph nodes were compared. Post-surgery paraffin pathology was adopted as the gold standard to calculate the predictive performance of the carbon nanoparticle tracers in detecting lymph node biopsy metastasis. 59 of the patients (80.8%) had lateral neck metastasis. The black-stained lymph nodes, dyed by Carbon nanoparticle tracers, in Compartment IV exhibited the highest proportions in the case number submitted for detection and in lymph nodes metastasis, followed by Compartment III. The metastasis rate of the dyed lymph nodes in areas III and IV was significantly higher than that of non-dyed lymph nodes (P < 0.05). The sensitivity and accuracy of the dyed lymph node biopsy in Compartments III—IV were 90% and 93.2%, respectively. This predictive performance was similar to that Compartments ll-V combined. In conclusion, when carbon nanoparticle tracers are used for lymph node biopsy, high sensitivity and accuracy are obtained in lateral neck compartments III—IV, making these compartments ideal for lymph node biopsy.