Children are assigned to 1 of 3 risk classifications (Table 3) based on stage, group and histology.
Patients were allocated to one of three groups, based on stage and site of disease.
While several studies (Jenkin et al, 1982; Shankar et al, 1998; Schellong et al, 1999; Oguz et al, 2005; Foltz et al, 2006) stratified patients to receive therapy based on stage of disease at presentation, no group specifically took into account additional prognostic factors such as those that comprise the SNLG index.
By plotting the e-GST found in sclerodermic patients grouped in subgroups based on stages of renal failure according to the Kidney Disease Outcomes Quality Initiative (K/DOQI) guidelines, it appears that also at the lowest level of chronic kidney disease (CKD stage 0 I), e-GST is very high and not remarkably different from that found in the CKD stages II and III (Table 3).
Grade was categorized as low grade I/II versus high grade III/IV and histology as ductal, NOS versus other, and stage was grouped into four categories fit as indicator variables (I/referent, II, III, IV) based on AJCC stage group.
Stage was based on TNM staging groups [ 38].
This method has low sensitivity when sampling is limited and is unlikely to fully reflect the treatment outcome [ 17] since calculation of treatment effectiveness is based on average abundance for only one stage group (PAAM or all mobiles).
To assess the confounding effect of ESCC on the clinical stage, we further stratified patients into different groups based on TNM stage (stages I IIA and stages IIB IV).
Patients were placed into 3 groups based on CKD stage: (i) Stage I/II CKD (GFR ≥ 60 mL/mii/1.73 m); (ii) Stage III CKD (GFR = 30 59 mL/min/1.73 m); or (iii) Stage IV/V CKD (GFR < 30 mL/min/1.73 m).
