Nomogram prediction for survival of patients with oral cavity squamous cell carcinoma.

BACKGROUND Nomograms are visual predictive tools that are widely used for estimating cancer prognosis. The purpose of this study was to develop a prognostic tool that will accurately predict overall survival (OS) in individual patients with oral cancer. METHODS Medical records of 609 patients with cancer of the oral cavity were retrospectively analyzed. The stepdown method was used to select the statistically most influential predictors for inclusion in the final nomogram for predicting OS. RESULTS The most influential predictors of mortality probability were age, comorbidities, clinical lymph node status, stage of disease, tumor thickness, differentiation, and perineural invasion. Nomogram was developed for prediction of 5-year OS. CONCLUSION Nomogram has been widely used in a number of cancers, but its application in oral cancer prognostication has not been explored. In this study, we have developed a nomogram that can accurately estimate 5-year OS in patients with oral cavity cancer. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Head Neck 38: 1826-1831, 2016.