Failure of further validation for survival nomograms in oropharyngeal cancer: issues and challenges

The two nomograms recently validated as prognostic tools for patients with oropharyngeal cancer treated with curative radiation-based therapy, identify social and educational level as significant predictors of survival outcome. We retrospectively tested these nomograms in 184 consecutive subjects treated from April 2004 to January 2016. Complete information regarding disease, survival status, and nomograms covariates were retrieved for 174 patients, with a median follow-up of 51 months. Calibration of the nomograms was obtained by evaluating the ability to accurately predict the absolute risk level; discriminative ability estimated by the Harrell C statistic was tested by assessing the ability of the nomograms to rank the patients from low risk to high risk.

http://ift.tt/2CjZy8q