Tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-3 expression affects clinicopathological features and prognosis of aflatoxin B1-related hepatocellular carcinoma

Table 6 Effects of aflatoxin B1 exposure and tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-3 expression on survival of patients with aflatoxin B1-related hepatocellular carcinoma

	OS		RFS
Variable	MST (95%CI)	HR (95%CI/P value)	MRT (95%CI)	HR (95%CI/P value)
AETE1	47.00 (43.20-50.80)	1.00	49.98 (42.03-57.93)1	1.00
AETE2	28.00 (21.25-34.75)	2.51 (1.48-4.24/6.44 × 10-4)	37.00 (21.45-52.55)	1.84 (0.95-3.57/0.07)
AETE3	26.00 (21.29-30.71)	2.59 (1.53-4.40/4.04 × 10-4)	28.00 (21.60-34.40)	2.90 (1.63-5.15/2.86 × 10-4)
AETE4	16.00 (11.72-20.28)	7.41 (4.49-12.23/4.77 × 10-15)	12.00 (7.65-16.35)	6.38 (3.68-11.05/3.85 × 10-11)

¹Because median tumor reoccurrence-free survival time for AETE1 cannot be calculated using the Kaplan-Meier survival method, it was replaced by the average survival time for AETE1.

AETE1: Low aflatoxin B1 exposure plus high TIMP3 expression; AETE2: Low aflatoxin B1 exposure plus low TIMP3 expression; AETE3: High aflatoxin B1 exposure plus high TIMP3 expression; AETE4: High aflatoxin B1 exposure plus low TIMP3 expression; OS: Overall survival; HR: Hazard ratio; RFS: Recurrence-free survival; CI: Confidential interval.