An Interpretable Machine-Learning Model for Predicting Occult Central Lymph Node Metastasis in Papillary Thyroid Cancer

This is the first study to identify RET fusion positivity as an independent OLNM risk factor in cN0 PTC. The developed RF model demonstrates moderate predictive performance for OLNM risk and provides a framework for integrating clinical, sonographic, and molecular data, and is deployed as a web calculator (https://predictingoccultlymphnodemetastasis.shinyapps.io/web3/).