Caspase-3 expression in metastatic lymph nodes of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma is prognostic of survival

Table 2 Correlations between caspase-3 protein expression and clinicopathologic features

Characteristic	Number of patients	Caspase-3 expression in PT		Caspase-3 expression in PMLN
		Mean rank	P value1	Mean rank	P value1
Gender
Male	102	60.22	0.365	63.18	0.237
Female	20	68.05		52.95
Age (yr)
≤ 58	61	62.23	0.820	63.1	0.617
> 58	61	60.77		59.9
Tumor location
Upper/middle	82	62.27	0.731	64.76	0.145
Lower	40	59.92		54.82
Tumor grade
G1	28	66.11	0.432	55.32	0.292
G2/G3	94	60.13		63.34
pT category
T2	12	103.7	< 0.001	84.92	0.016
T3/T4a	110	56.9		58.95
LN metastases2
N1	64	62.36	0.778	58.23	0.283
N2/N3	58	60.55		65.11

¹Mann-Whitney U-test;

²Number of involved lymph nodes. PT: Primary tumors; PMLN: Paired metastatic lymph nodes.