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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Immunol.

Sec. Cancer Immunity and Immunotherapy

Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1630061

This article is part of the Research TopicCommunity Series in Novel Reliable Approaches for Prediction and Clinical Decision-making in Cancer: Volume IIView all 9 articles

Development and validation of a nomogram for predicting overall survival in patients with primary central nervous system germ cell tumors

Provisionally accepted
Dunchen  YaoDunchen Yao1Baokui  YeBaokui Ye2Hongli  ZhangHongli Zhang3Long  PanLong Pan4Dongjie  YaoDongjie Yao5Xu  LiXu Li1*Chengcheng  GuoChengcheng Guo2*
  • 1Second People’s Hospital of Guiyang, Guiyang, China
  • 2State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Guangdong Provincial Clinical Research Center for Cancer, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, Guangzhou, China
  • 3Guizhou Provincial People's Hospital, Guiyang, China
  • 4Cordeliers Research Center, Sorbonne Université, Inserm, Université Paris Cité, Paris, France
  • 5Zhenyuan County Hospital, Zhenyuan, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Background: Primary central nervous system (CNS) germ cell tumors (GCTs) are common neoplasms in the CNS of pediatric and adolescent patients. This study aimed to identify prognostic factors associated with CNS GCTs and establish an effective nomogram for predicting overall survival (OS) in patients with CNS GCTs.: The development cohort including 1166 CNS GCTs patients was selected from Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program between 2000 and 2021. An additional 165 CNS GCTs patients treated at the Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center (SYSUCC) between 1997 and 2019 were included as validation cohort. Results: The nomogram incorporated the variables screened by multivariate Cox regression analysis, which included age, sex, histopathology, dissemination, tumor size, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. The model demonstrated good discriminative performance, with C-index of 0.773 (95% CI, 0.734 -0.812) and 0.712 (95% CI, 0.599-0.825) in the development and validation cohorts, respectively. Calibration curves and area under the time-dependent receiver operating characteristic curve (time-dependent AUC) verified the superiority of our nomogram for clinical usefulness. Decision curve analysis (DCA) further illustrated the potential clinical value of the nomogram for treatment decision-making. Additionally, we established a comprehensive risk grouping system that effectively categorized patients into distinct prognostic groups based on their predicted outcomes. Conclusion: A precise prognostic nomogram was developed for patients with CNS GCTs, utilizing seven independent prognostic factors. It demonstrated satisfactory performance and clinical usability, aiding clinicians in accurately estimating prognosis and guiding the treatment and long-term management of patients with CNS GCTs. Keywords primary central nervous system (CNS) germ cell tumors (GCTs); overall survival (OS); nomogram; risk grouping system; Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER).

Keywords: primary central nervous system (CNS) germ cell tumors (GCTs), Overall survival (OS), nomogram, risk grouping system, surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER)

Received: 16 May 2025; Accepted: 04 Aug 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Yao, Ye, Zhang, Pan, Yao, Li and Guo. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence:
Xu Li, Second People’s Hospital of Guiyang, Guiyang, China
Chengcheng Guo, State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Guangdong Provincial Clinical Research Center for Cancer, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, Guangzhou, China

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