A Model for the Prediction of Survival in Patients With Upper Tract Urothelial Carcinoma After Surgery

OBJECTIVE: We aimed to formulate and validate prognostic nomograms that can be used to predict the prognosis of patients with upper tract urothelial carcinoma (UTUC). METHODS: By consulting the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database, we identified patients who were surgically treated for UTUC between 2004 and 2013. Variables were analyzed in both univariate and multivariate analyses. Nomograms were constructed based on independent prognostic factors. The prognostic nomogram models were established and validated internally and externally to determine their ability to predict the survival of patients with UTUC. RESULTS: A total of 4990 patients were collected and enrolled in our analyses. Of these, 3327 patients were assigned to the training set and 1663 to the validation set. Nomograms were effectively applied to predict the 3- and 5-year survivals of patients with UTUC after surgery. The nomograms exhibited better accuracy for predicting overall survival (OS) and cancer-specific survival (CSS) than the tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) staging system and the SEER stage in both the training and validation sets. Calibration curves indicated that the nomograms exhibited high correlation to actual observed results for both OS and CSS. CONCLUSIONS: The nomogram models showed stronger predictive ability than the TNM staging system and the SEER stage. Precise estimates of the prognosis of UTUC might help doctors to make better treatment decisions.