Table 1.

Differential expression of nemo-like kinase protein in normal mucosa, adenoma, and various stages of colorectal cancer tissue specimens

Characteristic	Total	NLK expression				Positive rate	Mean rank1	P value2
		-	+	++	+++
Normal mucosa	56	14	35	6	1	75.0%	216.32	-
Adenoma	51	7	31	13	0	86.3%	273.63	0.049a
Stage I	53	4	22	21	6	92.5%	392.97	0.005c
Stage II	312	31	97	154	30	90.1%	410.66	0.573
Stage III	298	24	76	165	33	91.9%	441.42	0.074
Stage IV	49	1	7	17	24	98.0%	596.47	< 0.001b

¹Kruskal–Wallis test was used for the overall comparison (P < 0.001);

²Mann-Whitney U test was used to determine significant differences between two groups.

^aP ≤ 0.05 vs normal mucosa;

^cP ≤ 0.05 vs adenoma;

^bP ≤ 0.01 vs stage III cancer.