Prognostic factors for progression-free and overall survival in advanced biliary tract cancer

BACKGROUND: Biliary tract cancer is an uncommon cancer with a poor outcome. We assembled data from the National Cancer Research Institute (UK) ABC-02 study and 10 international studies to determine prognostic outcome characteristics for patients with advanced disease.METHODS: Multivariable analyses of the final dataset from the ABC-02 study were carried out. All variables were simultaneously included in a Cox proportional hazards model, and backward elimination was used to produce the final model (using a significance level of 10%), in which the selected variables were associated independently with outcome. This score was validated externally by receiver operating curve (ROC) analysis using…