A nomogram-based immune-serum scoring system predicts overall survival in patients with lung adenocarcinoma

The immunoscore, which is used to quantify immune infiltrates, has greater relative prognostic value than tumor, node, and metastasis (TNM) stage and might serve as a new system for classification of colorectal cancer. However, a comparable immunoscore for predicting lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) prognosis is currently lacking.

We analyzed the expression of 18 immune features by immunohistochemistry in 171 specimens. The relationship of immune marker expression and clinicopathologic factors to the overall survival (OS) was analyzed with the Kaplan-Meier method. A nomogram was developed by using the optimal features selected by least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression in the training cohort (n = 111) and evaluated in the validation cohort (n = 60).

The indicators integrated in the nomogram were TNM stage, neuron-specific enolase, carcino-embryonic antigen, CD8_{center of tumor (CT)}, CD8_{invasive margin (IM)}, FoxP3_CT, and CD45RO_CT. The calibration curve showed prominent agreement between the observed 2- and 5-year OS and that predicted by the nomogram. To simplify the nomogram, we developed a new immune-serum scoring system (I-SSS) based on the points awarded for each factor in the nomogram. Our I-SSS was able to stratify same-stage patients into different risk subgroups. The combination of I-SSS and TNM stage had better prognostic value than the TNM stage alone.

Our new I-SSS can accurately and individually predict LUAD prognosis and may be used to supplement prognostication based on the TNM stage.