A nomogram improves AJCC stages for colorectal cancers by introducing CEA, modified lymph node ratio and negative lymph node count

Lymph node stages (pN stages) are primary contributors to survival heterogeneity of the 7th AJCC staging system for colorectal cancer (CRC), indicating spaces for modifications. To implement the modifications, we selected eligible CRC patients from the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database as participants in a training (n = 6675) and a test cohort (n = 6760), and verified tumor deposits to be metastatic lymph nodes to derive modified lymph node count (mLNC), lymph node ratio (mLNR), and positive lymph node count (mPLNC). After multivariate Cox regression analyses with forward stepwise elimination of the mLNC and mPLNC for the training cohort, a nomogram was constructed to predict overall survival (OS) via incorporating preoperative carcinoembryonic antigen, pT stages, negative lymph node count, mLNR and metastasis. Internal validations of the nomogram showed concordance indexes (c-index) of 0.750 (95% CI, 0.736-0.764) and 0.749 before and after corrections for overfitting. Serial performance evaluations indicated that the nomogram outperformed the AJCC stages (c-index = 0.725) with increased accuracy, net benefits, risk assessment ability, but comparable complexity and clinical validity. All the results were reproducible in the test cohort. In summary, the proposed nomogram may serve as an alternative to the AJCC stages. However, validations with longer follow-up periods are required.