The ATA has proposed a system to estimate the risk of recurrence, whereby the likelihood of thyroid cancer recurrence or persistence is determined by several factors, including tumor size, associated symptoms, macroscopic invasion of perithyroidal soft tissues, pathological N1 disease, extranodal extension, coexistence of B-Raf proto-oncogene (BRAF) V600E and telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) mutations, postoperative serum Tg levels suggestive of distant metastases, incomplete tumor resection, and presence of distant metastasis. Here, TERT is linked to thyroid cancer.