Development and Validation of Prognostic Nomogram to Predict Overall Survival for Older Patients Who Age 75 Years or Older With Urothelial Carcinoma of Bladder

Abstract

Purpose: Age is an important factor for prognostic factor in bladder cancer. However, most clinical studies targeting bladder cancer have limited the upper age limit to 75 years. With the higher age of diagnosis of older patients with bladder cancer, there is a lack of prognostic data for bladder cancer at advanced ages. In this study, we analyzed the prognostic factors of older patients with bladder cancer 75 years or older using Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) data. Materials and Methods: Clinical parameters that constitute potential risk factors were analyzed by downloading a total of 13,505 patients with bladder cancer from the SEER database using univariate and multifactorial Cox proportional risk regression. Nomogram was constructed based on parameters significantly associated with overall survival (OS). The consistency index (c-index) and area under the curve were used to evaluate the predictive performance of the model. Results: From the SEER database, we analyzed 13,505 cases and found that the median survival time for the whole cohort was 52 months. However, the median survival was 11 months, 8 months, and 6 months in 75 to 79 years subgroup, 80 to 84 years subgroup, and older than 85 years subgroup, when patients were diagnosed with stage IV. OS was poorer in the high histological grade patients. Furthermore, it was found that patients with lymph node metastasis had a significantly unfavorable prognosis than those with negative lymph nodes. The more advanced stage and distant metastases of patients had the shorter survival. Patients who underwent surgery had better overall survival than nonsurgical patients, and chemotherapy had prolonged survival. Conversely, survival was documented to be shorter with radiotherapy than those without radiotherapy. Conclusions: The overall prognosis of older patients with bladder cancer was poor, especially in patients with lymph node metastasis, high histological grade, and advanced stage, while a combination of surgery and chemotherapy could prolong survival.