Table 1. Relationship of Merlin protein expression with clinical pathologic characteristics.

Variable	No. of patients	Merlin expression in HCC		P value
		Low	High
HCC tumour tissue				<0.001
Tumor without PVTT	37	12	25
Tumour with PVTT	148	100	48
HCC tumour tissue				0.001
Tumour	148	100	48
Adjacent non-tumour	29	10	19
Sex				0.169
Male	135	89	46
Female	13	11	2
Age (years)				0.205
>50	62	39	23
≤50	86	61	25
Tumour size (cm)				0.351
>5	120	79	41
≤5	28	21	7
HBsAg				0.335
Positive	129	89	40
Negative	19	11	8
TNM stage				0.427
I–II	102	66	36
III–IV	42	31	11
Distant metastasis				0.001
Yes	44	38	6
No	104	62	42

HCC, hepatocellular carcinoma. TNM, tumor node metastasis. Bold numbers indicate the statistical significance.

The Pearson χ²-test was used to analyze the relationships between the expression of Merlin and the clinicopathologic features in 148 HCC with PVTT, 37 HCC without PVTT and 29 tumour adjacent tissues. A value of P<0.05 was considered to be significant.