Table 3.

Association between nerve density in PTCs and clinical/pathological parameters.

Model variable	Nerves per cm2 of thyroid tissue		Nerves per cm2 of PTC
	Beta coefficient	p-value	Beta coefficient	p-value
Age	0 (0 to 0)	0.27	0 (0 to 0)	0.77
Sex	−0.2 (−0.7 to 0.3)	0.33	−0.2 (−0.7 to 0.3)	0.42
Tumour size (cm)	−0.3 (−0.5 to 0) −27% (−44 to −10%)	0.003	−0.5 (−0.8 to −0.4) −55% (−74 to −36%)	<0.0001
Extra-thyroidal invasion	0.8 (0.3 to 1.3) 123% (41 to 250%)	0.001	1.1 (0.6 to 1.6) 209% (87 to 411%)	<0.0001
Multifocality	0 (−0.4 to 0.5)	0.84	0 (0 to 0.2)	0.96
Nodal metastases	−0.1 (−0.6 to 0.4)	0.78	−0.3 (−0.8 to 0.3)	0.34
Intercept	3.3 (2.4 to 4.1)		3.9 (2.9 to 4.8)

Multiple log-linear regression of log-transformed nerve density and untransformed markers of cancer aggressiveness in PTCs. Coefficients (95% CI) are reported. Percentage change of the untransformed variable is co-reported (italics) for significant model variables, where each 1 unit increase in the model variable is associated with a percentage change in nerve density.