Montreal prognostic score: estimating survival of patients with non-small cell lung cancer using clinical biomarkers

Background: For evidence-based medical practice, well-defined risk scoring systems are essential to identify patients with a poor prognosis. The objective of this study was to develop a prognostic score, the Montreal prognostic score (MPS), to improve prognostication of patients with incurable non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in everyday practice. Methods: A training cohort (TC) and a confirmatory cohort (CC) of newly diagnosed patients with NSCLC planning to receive chemotherapy were used to develop the MPS. Stage and clinically available biomarkers were entered into a Cox model and risk weights were estimated. C-statistics were used to test the accuracy. Results: The TC consisted of 258 patients and the CC consisted of 433 patients. Montreal prognostic score classified patients into three distinct groups with median survivals of 2.5 months (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.8, 4.2), 8.2 months (95% CI: 7.0, 9.4) and 18.2 months (95% CI: 14.0, 27.5), respectively (log-rank, P