A Nomogram Model to Predict Post-Progression Survival in Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma Patients With Recurrence After Radical Resection

BACKGROUND: Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is characterized clinically by frequent recurrence, leading to a poor prognosis after radical surgery. The aim of this study was to identify a prognostic nomogram to predict the post-progression survival (PPS) of ESCC patients based on the features of primary tumor and recurrence. METHODS: A total of 234 ESCC patients who underwent recurrence after radical surgery were enrolled in this study. The independent prognostic factors screened by the univariate and multivariate Cox regression analysis were subsequently used to construct a nomogram. The predictive performance of the nomogram was evaluated with the concordance index (C-index), decision curve, and the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) and validated in two validation cohorts. The Kaplan-Meier curves of different recurrence patterns were analyzed. RESULTS: The prognostic nomogram of PPS was established by integrating independent prognostic factors, including age, body mass index, number of lymph node dissection, recurrence pattern, and recurrence treatment. The nomogram demonstrated good performance, with C-index values of 0.756, 0.817, and 0.730 for the training and two validation cohorts. The 1-year AUC values were 0.773, 0.798, and 0.735 and 3-year AUC values were 0.832, 0.871, and 0.791, respectively. Furthermore, we found that patients with bone metastasis displayed the worst PPS compared to other isolated recurrence patterns. CONCLUSION: We constructed a nomogram to reliably predict PPS, which would be valuable to provide individual managements for ESCC patients after radical surgery.