Table 1. The correlation between the positive rate of isolated CTCs and clinical variables of HCC patients.
| Clinical variable | P-value |
|---|---|
| Age | NSa |
| Sex | NSa |
| Cirrhosis | NSa |
| Tumor number | NSa |
| Etiology | NSb |
| Child–pugh class | NSb |
| AFP | NSb |
| Portal vein tumor thrombus | <0.001a |
| Edmondson–Steiner grade | 0.005a |
| Milan criteria | <0.001a |
| Tumor size | 0.003b |
| TNMc | <0.001b |
NS, not significant
a
P-values from Fisher's exact test
b
P-values from Spearman's rank correlation analysis
c
Sixth edition of UICC TNM staging system of HCC (2002)