Development and validation of a nomogram for risk of pulmonary metastasis in non-papillary thyroid carcinoma: A SEER-based study

Abstract

In this study, a nomogram was established and validated by assessing the risk factors for the development of pulmonary metastases in patients with non-papillary thyroid carcinoma (NPTC) and was used to predict the risk of developing pulmonary metastases. Demographic and clinicopathological variables of patients with NPTC from 2010 to 2015 in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database were retrospectively analyzed, and independent risk factors were identified using χ2 tests and full subset regression analysis. Based on this, a nomogram was developed and validated for predicting the risk of pulmonary metastasis in patients with NPTC. The predictive performance of the nomogram was calculated using the consistency index, and the clinical application value of the nomogram was evaluated using calibration curve and decision curve analyses. In addition, risk stratification of patients with NPTC based on these results was performed to facilitate early diagnosis and treatment of patients with pulmonary metastases in the clinic. Data from 1435 patients with NPTC were used for the analysis based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Statistical analysis yielded a high risk of pulmonary metastasis in patients with older age, high T-stage, poorly differentiated, undifferentiated thyroid carcinoma, follicular thyroid carcinoma (NOS), and the presence of other distant metastases. We further developed a nomogram with a consistency index of 0.898 (95% confidence interval: 0.880–0.920) in the training cohort and 0.895 (95% confidence interval: 0.862–0.927) in the validation cohort. The calibration curve and decision curve analyses also demonstrated the strong reliability and accuracy of this clinical prediction model. In this study, a nomogram was constructed to accurately identify patients with NPTC at a high risk of pulmonary metastasis, which will help clinicians in personalized decision-making.