Abstract: Objective:To investigate the incidence trends and clinicopathologic characteristics of papillary thyroid cancer (PTC). Methods:A retrospective analysis was conducting using the following data:3,766 cases with thyroid disease in the People's Hospital of Wuhan University between January2001and July 2013; and 977 cases with thyroid cancer in the Hubei Cancer Hospital between Janu -ary 2006and July 2013. Results: The incidence of thyroid cancer increased significantly since 2008, ranging from 14.94% to 18.10% (P<0.05). In particular, the PTC cases ranged from 85.33% to 90.89% (P<0.05). A total of 1,416 cases were diagnosed as PTC with a male to female ratio of1:3.75. The positive rate of neck lymph node metastasis (NLNM) was significantly different in terms of gender and age ( P<0.05). Significant differences were also found between the unifocal group and the multifocal group; the positive rate of NL -NM was77.94% in the latter group. The rate of NLNM in PTC was72.29%, which had higher significance compared with Hashimoto's thyroiditis or with nodular goiter. Conclusion : The incidence of thyroid cancer is increasing. Cases involving males aged below 45 years old and with >1 cm tumor diameter and multifocal PTC are more likely to be complicated with NLNM.