Prognostic value of lymphovascular invasion in patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the penis following surgery

BACKGROUND: To evaluate the prognostic value of Lymphovascular Invasion (LVI) in patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the penis (SCCP) following surgery. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This retrospective study analyzed the data of 891 eligible patients with SCCP who were diagnosed between 2010 and 2014, obtained from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database. The patients were categorized by LVI, age, grade, T stage, lymph nodes status, distant metastasis, regional lymph nodes removed, and surgery. Overall survival (OS) and penile carcinoma-specific survival (PCSS) were evaluated by Kaplan-Meier method and Cox proportional hazards regression model. RESULTS: The presence of LVI was significantly associated with increased risk of advanced T stage, high grade, lymph node metastasis, and distant metastasis (P < 0.001 for all). In Kaplan-Meier analyses, patients with the presence of LVI had significantly lower OS and PCSS than those with the absence of LVI (P < 0.001 for both,). The presence of LVI was also significantly associated with poorer OS and worse PCSS in patients with Tx + Ta + T1 stage (P = 0.007, P < 0.001), N0 stage (P < 0.001, P = 0.040), grade 1 (P = 0.001, P < 0.001), grade 2 (P = 0.001, P = 0.014), no distant metastasis (P < 0.001 for both), no regional lymph nodes removed (P < 0.001 for both), Non-radical surgery (P < 0.001 for both) and radical surgery(P = 0.037, P = 0.002). In multivariate analyses, the presence of LVI in patients with SCCP following surgery was found to be a significant independent predictor of decreased OS (hazard ratio 1.403, P = 0.039). CONCLUSIONS: The LVI status might be a crucial prognostic indicator for overall survival in patients with SCCP.