Novel prognostic nomograms for female patients with breast cancer and bone metastasis at presentation

Ann Transl Med. 2020 Mar;8(5):197. doi: 10.21037/atm.2020.01.37.

Abstract

Background: There is a paucity of literature about prognostic evaluation for patients with breast cancer (BC) and bone metastasis at presentation. To date, little is known about how to accurately predict the prognosis of BC patients with bone metastasis at presentation. Thus, an accurate prediction tool of prognosis in this population is urgently needed. Our goal is to construct novel and prognostic nomograms for BC patients with bone metastasis at presentation.

Methods: We searched Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database for BC patients with bone metastasis at presentation between 2010 and 2016. Multivariate analysis was performed to obtain significantly independent variables. Then, novel prognostic nomograms were constructed based on those independent predictors.

Results: Tumor grade, histological type, primary tumor size, tumor subtype, surgery, chemotherapy and number of metastatic organs except bone were recognized as significantly independent variables of both overall survival (OS) and cancer-specific survival (CSS). Then those significant variables were integrated to construct nomograms for 3- and 5-year survival. Calibration plots for the 3- and 5-year survival in training and validation sets showed that the prediction curve was close to a 45 degree slash. The C-indices of OS in training and validation cohorts were 0.705 and 0.678, respectively. Similar results were observed for CSS in training and validation cohorts.

Conclusions: Our proposed nomograms can effectively and accurately predict the prognosis of BC patients with bone metastasis at presentation, which provide a basis for individual treatments for metastatic lesions.

Keywords: Breast cancer (BC); bone metastasis; nomogram; predictor; prognosis.