Validation of EORTC, CUETO, and EAU risk stratification in prediction of recurrence, progression, and death of patients with initially non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC): A cohort analysis

Abstract

The results demonstrate that the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) scale provides the best recurrence and progression prediction in comparison with European Association of Urology (EAU) and Club Urologico Espanol de Tratamiento Oncologico (CUETO) risk scores among a mixed population of patients with non-muscle-invasive bladder who were treated with, or without, Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) and without any immediate postoperative chemotherapy. The study highlights the role of tumor diameter and extent in transition prediction. This retrospective cohort analysis of 322 patients with newly diagnosed non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) assesses the concordance and accuracy of predicting recurrence and progression by EAU-recommended tools (EAU risk groups, EORTC, and CUETO). One-year and five-year c-indices ranged from 0.55 to 0.66 for recurrence and from 0.72 to 0.82 for progression. AUCROC of predictions ranged from 0.46 for 1-year recurrence risk based on CUETO groups, to 0.82 for 1-year progression risk based on EAU risk groups. Diameter (HR: 1.91; 95% CI: 1.39-2.61) and tumor extent (HR: 1.21; 95% CI: 1.01-1.46 for recurrence; HR: 3.1; 95% CI: 1.40-6.87 for progression) were shown to be significant predictors in multistate analysis. Lower accuracy of prediction was observed for patients treated with BCG maintenance immunotherapy. The EORTC model (overall c-index c = 0.64; 95% CI: 0.61-0.68) was superior to the EAU (P = .035; .62; 95% CI: 0.59-0.66) and CUETO (P < .001; c = 0.53; 95% CI: 0.50-0.56) models in predicting recurrence. The EORTC model (c = 0.82; 95% CI: 0.77-0.86) also performed better than CUETO (P = .008; c = 0.73; 95% CI: 0.66-0.81) but there was no sufficient evidence that it performed better than EAU (P = .572; c = 0.81; 95% CI: 0.77-0.84) for predicting progression. EORTC and CUETO gave similar predictions for progression in BCG-treated EAU high-risk patients (P = .48). We share anonymized individual patient data. In conclusion, despite moderate accuracy, EORTC provided the best recurrence and progression prediction for a mixed population of patients treated with, or without BCG, and without immediate postoperative chemotherapy.

Keywords: bladder cancer; non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer; prediction; risk stratification; systematic review.