Performance of Salamanca refinement of the T3-AJCC8 versus the Brigham and Women's Hospital and Tübingen alternative staging systems for high-risk cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma

Abstract

[Introduction]: The Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Tübingen cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) stratification systems propose different criteria from the American Joint Committee on Cancer, eighth edition. Our group identified prognostic subgroups within T3 stage according to the American Joint Committee on Cancer eighth edition's classification, the most common classification for high-risk cutaneous SCCs.

[Objective]: To compare the performance and prognostic accuracy of these staging systems in a subset of high-risk cutaneous SCCs.

[Methods]: Homogeneity, monotonicity, and McNemar tests for pairwise comparisons were assessed. Distinctiveness and relative risk of poor outcome were calculated by stage. Prognostic accuracy was compared with respect to quality (Akaike and Bayesian information criteria), concordance (Harrell C-index and Gönen and Heller concordance probability estimate), and predictive accuracy (sensitivity, specificity, negative predictive value, positive predictive value, and global accuracy).

[Results]: The Brigham and Women's Hospital and Salamanca systems were more distinctive, homogeneous, and monotonic than the Tübingen system. The Tübingen system was the most specific, whereas the Salamanca and Brigham and Women's Hospital systems were more sensitive. Negative predictive value was high in all 3 systems, but positive predictive value and accuracy were low overall.

[Conclusions]: Alternative staging systems may partially overcome the heterogeneity and low prognostic accuracy of the American Joint Committee on Cancer, eighth edition and enable high-risk cutaneous SCCs to be stratified more reliably, but their prognostic accuracy is still low. Considering the accumulation of risk factors may improve high-risk cutaneous SCC risk stratification.