In papillary thyroid cancer (PTC), thyroidectomy, radioiodine (131I) therapy, and thyroid hormone suppression are the mainstay of treatment, conferring excellent overall survival.1 Despite effective initial treatment, the prognosis is significantly affected by tumor recurrence, which occurs in up to 30 % of patients at 30 years.2 Improvement of current methods to detect recurrence early and accurately is therefore clinically important. The gene discussed is TG; the disease is thyroid gland papillary carcinoma.