Prognostic nomogram for proliferative verrucous leukoplakia

Background: Proliferative verrucous leukoplakia (PVL) is a special type of leukoplakia characterized by high rate of malignant transformation into oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). This study aimed to analyze the canceration risk and prognostic factors of PVL and establish effective diagnostic and prognostic predictive models. Materials and methods: A total of 467 patients were enrolled, including 170 cases of PVL. The independent risk and prognostic factors of PVL were analyzed by univariable and multivariable logistic regression. Nomogram models were constructed to predict the canceration risk and prognosis of PVL. The predictive power was evaluated by Hosmer-Lemeshow test, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, calibration curve and decision curve analysis. Results: Multivariable logistic regression analyses identified that canceration risk factors of PVL included sex, lesion sites, clinical presentation, non-smoker and oral epithelial dysplasia (OED). The independent prognostic factors of PVL were sex, clinical presentation, local irritants and OED. Diagnosis and prognostic nomogram models were constructed. The areas under the ROC curve were 0.945 and 0.893, respectively. The calibration plots showed strong agreement between the prediction and observation. Decision curve analysis indicated that the models provided significant clinical benefits for patients. Conclusion: Our study established and validated the diagnosis and prognostic predictive nomogram models, which were accurate to predict the canceration risk and prognostic factors of PVL, providing individualized clinical decisions for clinical work.