Prediction of individuals at high absolute risk of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

This study aimed to develop a prediction model for identifying individuals at high absolute risk of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) for endoscopic screening at a curable stage based on readily identifiable risk factors.

This was a nationwide Swedish population-based, case-control study, including 167 new cases of ESCC and 820 randomly selected control participants. Odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were assessed by using multivariable unconditional logistic regression. The discriminative accuracy of the model was assessed by the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) with leave-1-out cross validation. Models for projecting individuals' absolute 5-year risk of ESCC were developed by incorporating the age-specific and sex-specific incidence rates and competing risk of death from other causes.

A model including the risk factors age, sex, tobacco smoking, alcohol overconsumption, education, duration of living with a partner, and place of residence during childhood generated an AUC of 0.81 (95% CI, 0.77-0.84). A model based only on age, sex, tobacco smoking, and alcohol overconsumption obtained a similar AUC (0.79; 95% CI, 0.75-0.82). A 5-year follow-up of 355 men aged 70 to 74 years with over 35 years' smoking and alcohol overconsumption history is needed to detect 1 ESCC case. The estimated individuals' absolute 5-year risk of ESCC varied according to the combinations of risk factors.

This easy-to-use risk prediction model showed a good discriminative accuracy and had the potential to identify individuals at high absolute risk of ESCC who might benefit from tailored endoscopic screening and surveillance.