%O This is an Open Access article made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 License. See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
%D 2022
%X PURPOSE: The 2003 Leibovich score guides prognostication and selection to adjuvant clinical trials for patients with locally advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC) after nephrectomy. We provide a robust external validation of the 2003 Leibovich score using contemporary data from SORCE, an international, randomized trial of sorafenib after excision of primary RCC. METHODS: Data used to derive the 2003 Leibovich score were compared with contemporary data from SORCE. Discrimination and calibration of the metastasis-free survival outcome were assessed in data from patients with clear-cell RCC, using Cox proportional hazards regression, Kaplan-Meier curves, and calculation of Harrell's c indexes. Secondary analyses involved three important SORCE groups: patients with any non-clear-cell subtype, papillary, and chromophobe carcinomas. RESULTS: Four hundred seven recurrences occurred in 982 patients in the Leibovich cohort and 520 recurrences were recorded in 1,445 patients in the primary SORCE cohort. Clear discrimination between intermediate-risk and high-risk SORCE cohorts was shown; hazard ratio 2.74 (95% CI, 2.29 to 3.28), c-index 0.63 (95% CI, 0.61 to 0.65). A hazard ratio of 0.61 (95% CI, 0.53 to 0.70) confirmed poor calibration of the two cohorts. Discrimination was observed in secondary populations, with c-indexes of 0.64 (95% CI, 0.59 to 0.69) for non-clear-cell RCC, 0.63 (95% CI, 0.56 to 0.69) for papillary RCC, and 0.65 (95% CI, 0.55 to 0.76) for chromophobe RCC. CONCLUSION: The 2003 Leibovich score discriminates between intermediate-risk and high-risk clear-cell and non-clear-cell RCC groups in contemporary data, supporting its use for risk stratification in adjuvant clinical trials. Over time, metastasis-free survival for patients with locally advanced RCC has improved. Contemporary data from adjuvant RCC trials should be used to improve prognostication for patients with RCC.
%L discovery10144485
%J Journal of Clinical Oncology
%A Bhavna Oza
%A Tim Eisen
%A Eleni Frangou
%A Grant D Stewart
%A Axel Bex
%A Alastair WS Ritchie
%A Rick Kaplan
%A Benjamin Smith
%A Ian D Davis
%A Martin R Stockler
%A Laurence Albiges
%A Bernard Escudier
%A James Larkin
%A Steven Joniau
%A Barry Hancock
%A Gregers G Hermann
%A Joaquim Bellmunt
%A Mahesh KB Parmar
%A Patrick Royston
%A Angela Meade
%I American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO)
%C United States
%T External Validation of the 2003 Leibovich Prognostic Score in Patients Randomly Assigned to SORCE, an International Phase III Trial of Adjuvant Sorafenib in Renal Cell Cancer