Zong L, Zhang Q, Kong Y, et al. - By retrospectively analyzing patients (n = 384) with node-positive squamous cell carcinoma of the cervix (2018 FIGO stage IIIC) who underwent radical surgery between January 2005 and December 2016, researchers assessed the value of the tumor-stroma ratio (TSR) while identifying prognostic factors in these patients. The TSRs were grouped as stroma-low (< 50% stroma) or stroma-high (≥ 50% stroma). Shorter disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) periods were noted in stroma-high patients vs their stroma-low counterparts. Independent predictors of shorter DFS and OS in multivariate analysis were: a tumor size ≥ 4 cm, ≥ 3 metastatic lymph nodes, and stroma-high status. Overall, TSR was identified as an independent prognostic factor and a prognostic scoring system including this parameter displayed good discriminative ability for both recurrence as well as survival in this patient population. The TSR was suggested as a potentially new clinicopathological variable for prognosis prediction in these patients contingent on the validation of these findings.