Relationship between autophagy and perineural invasion, clinicopathological features, and prognosis in pancreatic cancer

Table 2 Relationships of perineural invasion and microtubule-associated protein 1A/1B-light chain 3 expression with clinicopathological features

Parameter	n	PNI		P value	LC3		P value
		Absent	Present		Low expression	High expression
Age (yr)
≤ 58	54	19	35	0.373	23	31	0.206
> 58	55	15	40		17	38
Gender
Male	61	15	46	0.093	26	35	0.148
Female	48	19	29		14	34
Tumor location
Head	66	17	49	0.129	28	38	0.124
Body/tail	43	17	26		12	31
Tumor size (cm)
≤ 2	18	6	12	0.83	8	10	0.455
> 2	91	28	63		32	59
Histologic grade
Well or moderate	74	24	50	0.685	23	51	0.077
Poor	35	10	25		17	18
Vascular invasion
Negative	83	26	57	0.957	31	52	0.801
Positive	26	8	18		9	17
Lymph node metastasis
Negative	36	17	19	0.011a	18	18	0.043a
Positive	73	17	56		22	51
AJCC stage
I + II	69	22	47	0.838	25	44	0.895
III + IV	40	12	28		15	25
Pancreatitis
Negative	30	15	15	0.009a	12	18	0.659
Positive	79	19	60		28	51
Diabetes
Negative	89	27	62	0.684	33	56	0.862
Positive	20	7	13		7	13
CA19-9 level (U/mL)
≤ 37	37	19	19	0.001a	13	24	0.808
> 37	72	15	57		27	45

^aP < 0.05, LC3 low expression vs high expression; PNI absent vs present. LC3: Microtubule-associated protein 1A/1B-light chain 3; PNI: Perineural invasion.