ArticleOncology2025
Prognostic Factors in Pleural Mesothelioma Patients Receiving First-Line Chemotherapy: Establishing the PLECH Baseline Risk Score.
Article in Oncology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Moving Beyond Morphology: Toward a Morpho-Molecular Classification of Pleural Mesothelioma.Journal of thoracic oncology : official publication of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer · 2026Review
- Trop-2 expression is associated with poor survival in pleural mesothelioma.Frontiers in oncology · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issuedErratum.2026
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionPleural mesothelioma (PM) is a rare and aggressive cancer where prognostic assessment is crucial. Traditional prognostic scores such as the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) and the Cancer and Leukemia Group B (CALGB) have limitations, particularly in reflecting contemporary treatments and demographic diversities, while more recent scores often include novel biomarkers, not widely available and validated. Our goal was to create an effective prognostic score for PM using readily available baseline data.
methodsA retrospective cohort study at two Mexican cancer centers included patients with unresectable PM treated with the first-line chemotherapy from 2010 to 2023. Baseline variables' associations with overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) were analyzed. Prognostic variables from univariate and multivariate analyses formed a baseline risk score. The score's OS prediction was compared to standard CALGB and EORTC scores using ROC curves and Kaplan-Meier analysis.
resultsAmong 262 patients (69.1% male, 80.5% epithelioid histology), we developed a 0-7 point PLECH score based on five variables: platelet count (P: +2), high LDH (L: +1), ECOG ≥2 (E: +1), chest pain at diagnosis (C: +2), and non-epithelioid histology (H: +1). The score had an area under the curve of 0.70 for predicting 1-year OS, outperforming CALGB (0.60) and EORTC (0.57) scores, with an optimal cut-off of 2.5 (sensitivity 75%, specificity 55%). High scores (≥3) indicated worse OS (12.3 vs. 20.1 months; p < 0.001) and PFS (6.4 vs. 11.3 months; p < 0.001).
conclusionThe PLECH score, developed from a substantial Latin-American cohort, is a simple and effective prognostic tool for PM patients, outperforming traditional scores. It identifies a high-risk group potentially better suited to alternative treatments.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.