Prognostic factors and nomogram for cancer-specific death in non small cell lung cancer with malignant pericardial effusion

Background The prognosis of lung cancer with malignant pericardial effusion is very terrible owing to the impact of cardiac tamponade. The aim of our study seeks to identify prognostic factors and establish a prognostic nomogram of non small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with malignant pericardial effusion. Methods NSCLC patients with malignant pericardial effusion between 2010 and 2014 are searched from SEER database. Cancer-specific death of these patients are analyzed through the Kaplan-Meier method, Cox proportional hazard model and competing risk model. Prognostic nomogram of cancer-specific death is performed and validated with concordance index (C-index), calibration plots and internal validation population. Propensity score matching is used to evaluate whether chemotherapy affected the survival of study population. Results 696 eligible NSCLC patients are involved in the study population, with 22.7% of 1-year survival rate and 8.9% of 2-year survival rate. Laterality, AJCC N, AJCC T, and chemotherapy are regarded as independent prognostic factors of cancer-specific death in the Cox proportional hazards model and competing risk model. The C-index of established nomogram is 0.703 (95% CI: 0.68-0.73) for cancer-specific death in the study population with acceptable calibration, which is significantly higher than classical TNM stage(C-index = 0.56, 95% CI: 0.52-0.60). After 1: 1 propensity score matching, chemotherapy potentially reduces the risk of cancer-specific death (HR = 0.42 95% CI: 0.31-0.58) of NSCLC with pericardial effusion. Conclusions NSCLC with malignant pericardial effusion harbors low overall survival. One prognostic nomogram based on laterality, AJCC N, AJCC T and chemotherapy is developed for cancer-specific death to predict 1-year and 2-year survival rate with good performance.