In addition, subgroup analysis showed that POSTN was related to microvascular invasion (OR = 5.09, 95% CI = 3.07-8.44, p < .00001), tumor differentiation (OR = 2.03, 95% CI = 1.41-2.91, p = .0001), and lymph node metastasis (OR = 3.05, 95% CI = 2.01-4.64, p < .00001).
Clinical sample analysis further confirmed that the expression of POSTN and N-cadherin were correlated with pathological grade and lymph node metastasis of HNC.
High POSTN expression was significantly associated with lymph node metastasis (<i>p</i>=0.004) and advanced American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) stage (<i>p</i>=0.006).
RESULTS The high expression of periostin was significantly correlated to tumor stage (P=0.000), vascular invasion (P=0.027), differentiation (P=0.002), invasion depth (P=0.023), and lymph node metastasis (P=0.017).
The positive ratio of periostin expression in the neoplastic stroma was significantly correlated with the depth of invasion (p=0.007) and lymph node metastasis (p=0.027).
This observation demonstrated that periostin was overexpressed in gastric cancer and lymph node metastasis, which suggests that periostin plays an important role in the progression and metastasis of gastric cancer.