Abstract Background: The transportability of models for postoperative high-volume cervical nodal disease in papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) and the incremental predictive value of molecular variables remain uncertain. Methods: We developed models in the public Deyang cohort (521 patients; 90 events) and performed geographic external validation in the independent Liaocheng cohort (193 patients; 73 events). The outcome was >5 pathologically confirmed metastatic cervical lymph nodes.
