Hybrid Machine Learning and Deep Learning Framework for Predicting Lymph Node Metastasis in Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma with Hashimoto's Thyroiditis: A Retrospective Cohort Study

Background:  Papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) is commonly present in the co-occurrence with Hashimoto thyroiditis (HT); the inflammatory microenvironment, however, presents obstacles to preoperative predictability of lymph node metastasis (LNM). Accurate risk stratification also clinically cannot be done without to inform surgical decision-making and reduce unnecessary central neck dissections. In line with this, this study assesses the viability of machine-learning (ML), deep-learning (DL