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

Table 4 Univariate and multivariate analyses1 of factors associated with disease-specific survival in 122 patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

Prognostic factor	P value	RR	95%CI
Univariate survival analysis
Gender (male vs female)	0.91	1.031	0.611-1.740
Age ( ≤ 58 vs > 58)	0.012	1.661	1.118-2.469
Location(lower vs upper/middle)	0.293	0.877	0.687-1.120
Differentiation (grade 1 vs grade 2/3)	0.051	1.623	0.998-2.641
Surgical approach (Sweet vs McKeown)	0.637	0.91	0.615-1.347
Adjuvant therapy (No vs Yes)	0.501	0.907	0.683-1.205
pT category (T2 vs T3/T4a)	0.61	1.186	0.616-2.285
pN category (N1 vs N2/N3)	< 0.001	2.19	1.463-3.277
Caspase-3 expression in PT	0.037	0.627	0.404-0.973
(negative vs positive)
Caspase-3 expression in PMLN	0.03	4.909	1.164-20.708
(low vs high level expression)
Multivariate survival analysis
Age ( ≤ 58 vs > 58)	< 0.001	2.122	1.404-3.207
pN category (N1 vs N2/N3)	< 0.001	2.422	1.590-3.690
Caspase-3 expression in PT	0.021	0.584	0.370-0.921
(negative vs positive)
Caspase-3 expression in PMLN	0.01	1.991	1.180-3.359
(low vs high level)

¹Cox proportional hazards regression analysis (Forward stepwise); RR: Relative risk; PT: Primary tumor; PMLN: Paired metastatic lymph node.