The clinical implications of integrating additional prognostic factors into the TNM

The management of solid tumors is governed by host and tumor factors that traditionally have incorporated TNM staging with additional pathologic, biologic, and clinical host factors. Beyond the anatomic‐based TNM, increasingly new prognostic and predictive factors are being discovered that have important survival and treatment implications. However, because the TNM is based on a “bin” model, additional prognostic factors would rapidly overwhelm the current system. This communication demonstrates the clinical implications and improved patient prognosis derived from a new algorithmic model based on clustering analysis.