Development and external validation of a preoperative nomogram for predicting pathological locally advanced disease of clinically localized upper urinary tract carcinoma

Abstract

Objective: To develop and validate a preoperative nomogram to predict pathological locally advanced disease (pLAD) of clinically localized upper urinary tract urothelial carcinoma (UTUC) treated with extirpative surgery. Methods: In total, 1101 patients with cN0M0 UTUC (development cohort, n = 604; validation cohort, n = 497) from 2 independent academic databases were retrospectively analyzed. pLAD was defined as pT3/4 and/or pN+. Multivariate logistic regression was used to develop a nomogram. The accuracy of the nomogram was evaluated with a receiver operating characteristic curve, calibration plot, and decision curve analysis. Results: The development and validation cohorts comprised 204 (33.8%) and 178 (35.8%) patients with pLAD, respectively. The multivariate analyses showed that the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (hazard ratio [HR], 2.27; P