The prognostic value of morphologic findings for lung squamous cell carcinoma patients

Novel histopathological prognostic features for squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of lung, such as tumor budding, mitotic rate, tumor stroma ratio, stroma type, stromal inflammation and necrosis, have been evaluated in the literature. In this study, the prognostic value of multiple morphological features is assessed in lung SCC.

This study reports on seventy-six patients with lung SCC treated with complete surgical excision. Tumor size, tumor stage, lymph node status, lymphovascular invasion, histopathologic grade, mitotic count, necrosis, tumor budding, tumor stroma ratio, stroma type, stromal lymphoplasmacytic reaction and ratios of stromal plasma cells and their relationship with the prognosis were evaluated. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed for histopathological markers for local disease free survival (LDFS), distant disease free survival (DDFS), overall disease free survival (ODFS) and overall survival (OS).

The univariate prognostic analysis of the pathological factors revealed that the pathological stage (OS: p=0.001, DDFS: p=0.040), lymph node metastases (OS: p=0.013), mitotic index (OS: p=0.026), tumor necrosis (DDFS: p=0.013, ODFS: p=0.021) and tumor size (OS: p=0.002) had a prognostic significance. The multivariate analysis demonstrated that the pathological stage (OS: p=0.021), tumor size (OS: p=0.044), lymph node status (DDFS: p=0.019, ODFS; p=0.041) and necrosis (ODFS: p=0.048) were independent prognostic factors.

Although many histopathological factors have recently been proposed as important prognostic markers, we only found significant results for mitotic index and tumor necrosis, as well as the well known parameters such as tumor stage and lymph node status. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study evaluating such a wide range of morphological prognostic factors in lung SCC.