The main determinants of survival time after surgery include pathological type and stage of disease: 1. benign nodules: survival time has no effect; 2. common types of thyroid cancer include papillary carcinoma, follicular carcinoma, medullary carcinoma and undifferentiated carcinoma; papillary carcinoma has the best prognosis and timely and standardized treatment does not affect life expectancy; 3. follicular carcinoma has a survival rate of about 90% at 15 years; 4. medullary carcinoma and undifferentiated carcinoma of the thyroid have a poor prognosis; early medullary carcinoma can be cured by surgery and the average survival time at advanced stages is about 5 years; 5. undifferentiated carcinoma has the worst prognosis and most of them can only survive for more than 10 months and a few for 1-2 years.