Thyroid neoplasm is one of the most common endocrinal tumors. In general, thyroid cancer patients are usually presented with asymptomatic neck nodules. A differential diagnosis between malignant and benign thyroid neoplasm is very important for these patients. This review article primarily discusses biological markers used to aid the differential diagnosis of thyroid neoplasia, which may lead to a more rational approach to the treatment. It mainly describes the recent development of molecular biological markers VEGF-C, Cytokeratin-19, HBME-1, Pax8-PPAR and Galectin-3 for the differential diagnosis of thyroid neoplasms.

Objective: To investigate the rationality of management of active surveillance for papillary thyroid microcarcinoma (PTMC) and the main indications for active surveillance for PTMC. Methods: In this study, two criteria were used to evaluate patients with PTMC: low-risk PTMC conditions defined by Kuma hospital and Chinese Association of Thyroid Oncology (CATO) consensus on PTMC management of active surveillance. The patients had received surgical treatment. Clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis of the patients in different groups were compared. Results: A total of 778 patients were enrolled in the study, 565 (72.6%) of them met Kuma screening criteria and only 112 (14.4%) met CATO screening criteria. Kuma low-risk subgroup had lower incidence of cervical lymph node metastasis than Kuma high-risk PTMC subgroup(30.6% vs 47.9%, P<0.05). There were significant differences in multifocal lesions(6.3% vs 16.4%), extrathyroidal extension (1.8% vs 7.5%) and cervical lymph node metastasis(19.6% vs 38.0%) between low-risk and high-risk CATO PTMC subgroups. Patients in the CATO low-risk PTMC subgroup had lower recurrence and longer disease-free survival (DFS) than those in the CATO high-risk PTMC subgroup. But there was no significant difference in recurrence or DFS between Kuma low-risk and high-risk Kuma PTMC subgroups.The Chi-square test of Fisher′s exact probabilities test was used to compare clinicopathological characteristics of patients between different groups.Rates of disease-free survival were calculated using the Kaplan-Meier method. Conclusion CATO screening criteria is relatively strict and may be more suitable for Chinese patients with active surveillance for PTMC.