Nomogram to predict the prognosis of parotid gland mucoepidermoid carcinoma: a population-based study of 1306 cases

Jian Sun; Yang Sun; Fei Yang; Qianrong Zhou; Wenjuan Liu; Yong Cheng; Xingwen Wu; Tinglan Chen; Ruixue Li; Borui Huang; Wael Att; Youcheng Yu; Wei Bi

doi:10.7717/peerj.7237

Nomogram to predict the prognosis of parotid gland mucoepidermoid carcinoma: a population-based study of 1306 cases

PeerJ. 2019 Jul 1:7:e7237. doi: 10.7717/peerj.7237. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Jian Sun^#¹, Yang Sun^#¹, Fei Yang¹, Qianrong Zhou¹, Wenjuan Liu^{1

2}, Yong Cheng¹, Xingwen Wu¹, Tinglan Chen¹, Ruixue Li¹, Borui Huang¹, Wael Att^{3

4}, Youcheng Yu¹, Wei Bi¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Stomatology, Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
² Department of Stomatology, Xuhui Central Hospital, Shanghai, China.
³ Department of Prosthodontics, School of Dentistry, Albert Ludwigs University, Freiburg, Germany.
⁴ Department of Prosthodontics, Dental Medicine, Tufts University School, Boston, United States of America.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Background: Mucoepidermoid carcinoma (MEC) is a common cancer in the oral salivary gland malignancy, which mainly occurs in the parotid gland. The aim of this study is to identify independent prognostic factors and establish a nomogram model for parotid gland mucoepidermoid carcinoma (P-MEC) patients using the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database.

Method: Patients with P-MEC were selected from between 2004 and 2015. The overall survival (OS) and cancer-specific survival (CSS) rates were estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method with the log-rank test. Univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression analyses were performed to identify the independent prognostic factors.

Results: A total of 1,306 patients with P-MEC were enrolled. Age, grade, T stage, N stage, M stage, chemotherapy, and surgery type were independent prognostic factors for OS and CSS. A nomogram for OS was formulated based on these independent prognostic factors and validated using an internal bootstrap resampling approach, which showed that the nomogram exhibited a sufficient level of discrimination according to the C-index (0.877, 95% CI [0.855-0.898]).

Conclusion: Several prognostic factors for P-MEC were identified. The nomogram developed in this study accurately predicted the 5- and 10-year OS rates of American patients with P-MEC based on individual characteristics. Risk stratification using the survival nomogram can optimize individual therapies and follow-up.

Keywords: Mucoepidermoid carcinoma; Nomogram; Parotid gland; Prognosis; SEER database.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 81870793, 81670956) and Shanghai Science Commission project (Grant No. 16520710400). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.