Stent placement for benign esophageal leaks, perforations, and fistulae: a clinical prediction rule for successful leakage control

Background and study aims Sealing esophageal leaks by stent placement allows healing in 44%-94% of patients. We aimed to develop a prediction rule to predict the chance of successful stent therapy. Patients and methods In this multicenter retrospective cohort study, patients with benign upper gastrointestinal leakage treated with stent placement were included. We used logistic regression analysis including four known clinical predictors of stent therapy outcome. The model performance to predict successful stent therapy was evaluated in an independent validation sample. Results We included etiology, location, C-reactive protein, and size of the leak as clinical predictors. The model was estimated from 145 patients (derivation sample), and 59 patients were included in the validation sample. Stent therapy was successful in 55.9% and 67.8% of cases, respectively. The predicted probability of successful stent therapy was significantly higher in success patients compared with failure patients in both the derivation (P < 0.001) and validation (P < 0.001) samples. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 74.1% in the derivation sample and 84.7% in the validation sample. When the model predicted >= 70% chance of success, the positive predictive value was 79% in the derivation sample and 87% in the validation sample. When the model predicted <= 50% chance of success, the negative predictive value was 64% and 86%, respectively. Conclusions This prediction rule, consisting of four clinical predictors, could identify patients with esophageal leaks who were likely to benefit from or fail on stent therapy. The prediction rule can support clinical decision-making when the predicted probability of success is >= 70% or <= 50 %.