Li N, He JH, Song C, et al. - In patients with solitary and clinical lymph node negative (cN0) papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) in the preoperative period, researchers sought to develop an improved nomogram including clinical features, ultrasound, and acoustic radiation force impulse (ARFI) elastography for the prediction of contralateral central lymph node metastasis (CLNM). In total, 340 patients were retrospectively involved as the training cohort and 170 patients as the external validation cohort. Multivariable analysis showed that patients with younger age, male gender, larger tumor size, closer distance from the capsule, microcalcification, and larger SWV_mean were independent predictors linked to the contralateral CLNM, which was served as the basis of the nomogram. In the preoperative prediction of the risk of contralateral CLNM in patients with solitary and cN0 PTC, a nomogram using ultrasound characteristics combined with ARFI elastography was developed, which demonstrated superior performance both in internal and external validation.