Abstract: Objective To investigate prognosis of patients with cN0 papillary thyroid cancer treated by different surgical procedure and postoperative therapy. Methods Retrospective analysis of 180 patients with cN0 papillary thyroid cancer from January 2013 to June 2014 in the department of general surgery of Chinese PLA General Hospital was performed, then patients were divided into total thyroidectomy with central lymph node dissection group (A, n=60) total thyroidectomy with postoperative¹³¹I therapy group (B, n=60) and total thyroidectomy with central lymph node dissection and postoperative¹³¹I therapy group (C, n=60) to investigate the prognosis treated by different methods. Those male/female ratio, average age, tumor characteristics between three groups showed no statistical significance (P＞ 0.05). Results The cervical lymph node metastasis rate and the elevated serum thyroglobulin with no evidence rate were group C＜ group A＜ group B (P＜ 0.05). The differences in incidences of postoperative complication including recurrent laryngeal nerve injury, superior laryngeal nerve injury and hypoparathyroidism between three groups showed no statistical significance (P＞ 0.05). Conclusion Total thyroidectomy with central lymph node dissection + postoperative¹³¹I therapy can efficiently reduce the long-term recurrence rate and metastasis rate in patients with cN0 papillary thyroid cancer, which does no increase the complications.