Abstract
BACKGROUND: It has been reported that Osaka prognostic score (OPS), based on C-reactive protein (CRP), total lymphocyte counts (TLC) and albumin (ALB), was relevant to prognosis in colorectal cancer. However, the role of OPS regarding prognosis in patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) has not been reported. The current study aimed to explore the clinical outcome of OPS and establish and validate a nomogram for survival prediction in ESCC after radical resection. METHODS: This retrospective study included 395 consecutive ESCC patients with radical resection. Then patients were randomly divided into two cohorts: training cohort (276) and validation cohort (119). The OPS, based on TLC, CRP and ALB, was constructed to verify the prognostic value by Kaplan-Meier curves and Cox analyses. A nomogram model for prognosis prediction of cancer-specific survival (CSS) was developed and validated in two cohorts. RESULTS: Kaplan-Meier curves regarding the 5-year CSS for the groups of OPS 0, 1, 2 and 3 were 55.3, 30.6, 17.3 and 6.7% (P < 0.001) in the training cohort and 52.6, 33.3, 15.8 and 9.1% (P < 0.001) in the validation cohort, respectively. Then the OPS score in multivariate Cox analysis was confirmed to be a useful independent score. Finally, a predictive OPS-based nomogram was developed and validated with a C-index of 0.68 in the training cohort and 0.67 in the validation cohort, respectively. All above results indicated that the OPS-based nomogram can accurately and effectively predict survival in ESCC after radical resection. CONCLUSION: The OPS serves as a novel, convenient and effective predictor in ESCC after radical resection. The OPS-based nomogram has potential independent prognostic value, which can accurately and effectively predict individual CSS in ESCC after radical resection.