Table 2. p-AMPK status in colorectal cancer and patient mortality.

		Colorectal cancer-specific mortality			Overall mortality
AMPK status	Total N	Deaths/ person-years	Univariate HR (95% CI)	Multivariate stage-matched HR (95% CI)	Deaths/ person-years	Univariate HR (95% CI)	Multivariate stage-matched HR (95% CI)
p-AMPK (−)	309	86/2164	1 (referent)	1 (referent)	125/2164	1 (referent)	1 (referent)
p-AMPK (+)	409	108/2952	0.84 (0.61–1.17)	0.95 (0.71–1.28)	181/2952	1.08 (0.84–1.39)	1.12 (0.89–1.42)

Abbreviations: BMI=body mass index; CI=confidence interval; HR=hazard ratio; CIMP=CpG island methylator phenotype; FASN=fatty acid synthase; MSI=microsatellite instability; p-AMPK=phosphorylated AMP-activated protein kinase.

The multivariate, stage-matched (stratified) Cox model initially included sex, age at diagnosis, year of diagnosis, BMI, family history of colorectal cancer, tumour location, tumour grade, tumour border, CIMP, MSI, LINE-1 methylation, BRAF, KRAS, PIK3CA, TP53 and FASN. A backward stepwise elimination with a threshold of P=0.20 was used to select variables in the final model. Stage adjustment (I, IIA, IIB, IIIA, IIIB, IIIC, IV, unknown) was done using the ‘strata’ option in the SAS ‘proc phreg’ command.