Predicting Individual Survival after Curative Esophagectomy for Squamous Cell Carcinoma of Esophageal

Esophageal cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer-related death worldwide. Despite the significant progress in the overall treatment of esophageal cancer in recent years, the prognosis for patients who require surgery remains poor.

The present study investigated the clinicopathological features of 503 patients who underwent radical esophagectomy at Huashan Hospital of Fudan University between January 2005 and January 2015. Nomograms that predicted the esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) survival rates were established using the Cox proportional hazard regression model. Discrimination and calibration, which were calculated after bootstrapping, were used as a measure of accuracy.

Multivariate analyses were used to select five independent prognostic variables and build the nomogram. These variables were pathological T stage, pathological N factor, rate of positive LNs, history of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and postoperative sepsis. The nomogram was built to predict the rates for overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS). The concordance index for the nomogram prediction for OS and DFS was 0.720 and 0.707, respectively. Compared to the conventional TNM staging system, the nomogram had better predictive accuracy for survival (OS 0.720 vs. 0.672, P < 0.001; DFS 0.707 vs. 0.667; P < 0.001).

The present study incorporated pathological T stage, pathological N factor, rate of positive LNs, history of COPD, and postoperative sepsis into a nomogram to predict the OS and DFS of ESCC patients. This practical system may help clinicians in both decision-making and clinical study design. The assessment of lung function for patients with COPD preoperative, and the control of disease progression are needed. Furthermore, the postoperative infection of patients should be controlled. Further studies may help to extend the validation of this method and improve the model through parameter optimization.