External Validation of the Briganti Nomogram to Predict Lymph Node Invasion in Prostate Cancer-Setting a New Threshold Value.

(1) Introduction: The study aimed to test and validate the performance of the 2012 Briganti nomogram as a predictor for pelvic lymph node invasion (LNI) in men who underwent radical prostatectomy (RP) with extended pelvic lymph node dissection (PLND) to examine their performance and to analyse the therapeutic impact of using a different nomogram cut-off. (2) Material and Methods: The study group consisted of 222 men with clinically localized prostate cancer (PCa) who underwent RP with ePLND between 01/2012 and 10/2018. Measurements included: preoperative PSA, clinical stage (CS), primary and secondary biopsy Gleason pattern, and the percentage of positive cores. The area under the curve (AUC) of the receiver operator characteristic analysis was appointed to quantify the accuracy of the primary nomogram model to predict LNI. The extent of estimation associated with the use of this model was graphically depicted using calibration plots. (3) Results: The median number of removed lymph nodes was 16 (IQR 12-21). A total of 53 of 222 patients (23.9%) had LNI. Preoperative clinical and biopsy characteristics differed significantly (all p < 0.005) between men with and without LNI. A nomogram-derived cut-off of 7% could lead to a reduction of 43% (95/222) of lymph node dissection while omitting 19% (10/53) of patients with LNI. The sensitivity, specificity, and negative predictive value associated with the 7% cut-off were 81.1%, 50.3%, and 96.3%, respectively. (4) Conclusions: The analysed nomogram demonstrated high accuracy for LNI prediction. A nomogram-derived cut-off of 7% confirmed good performance characteristics within the first external validation cohort from Poland.

The Usefulness of Lymphadenectomy in Bladder Cancer-Current Status.

The purpose of this review is to present the current status of lymph node dissection (LND) during radical cystectomy in patients with bladder cancer (BCa). Despite the growing body of evidence of LND utility at the time of radical cystectomy (RC) in high-risk nonmuscle-invasive and muscle-invasive BCa (MIBC), therapeutic and prognostic value and optimal extent of LND remain unsolved issues. Recently published results of the first prospective, a randomized trial assessing the therapeutic benefit of extended versus limited LND during RC, failed to demonstrate survival improvement with the extended template. Although LND is the most accurate staging procedure, the direct therapeutic effect is still not evident from the current literature, limiting the possibility of establishing clear recommendations. This indicates the need for robust and adequately powered clinical trials.