Abstract: Objective : To investigate the relationship between the pathological subtypes and cervical lymph nodemetastasis in papillary thyroid carcinoma. Methods : We retrospectively reviewed 602 cases of papillary thyroidcarcinomas who had underwent resection and neck lymph node dissection. χ² test was used to analyze thecorrelation between pathological subtypes and lymph node metastasis. Results : The total rate of cervicallymph node metastasis was 65% in these 602 cases. Among the 8 pathological subtypes, the rates of cervicallymph node metastasis were 72.4%, 75.2%, 80.3% and 73.0% in the subtypes of general papillary carcinoma,diffuse sclerosis variant, extracapsulated variant and follicle carcinoma, respectively. The rate of cervicallymph node metastasis was 40.6% in edematous carcinoma, 46.2% in tall cell carcinoma, 47.8% in minimalcarcinoma and 30.0% in intracapsulated variant. The frequently involved regions of lymph node metastasis inthe neck were region Ⅲ (49.5%), Ⅳ (42.3%), Ⅱ (38.5%) and Ⅵ (30.2%). Region Ⅴ (8.9%) and Ⅰ (1.6%)were in the minority. Conclusion : The rate of cervical lymph node metastasis is closely related to differentpathological subtypes in papillary thyroid carcinoma.