Table 2. Association of LVDpodoplanin, LVDVEGFR3 and HEVD with lymph node metastasis.

SLNs	No. of SLNs	LVDpodoplanin		LVDVEGFR3		HEVD
		Mean ± SD	p	Mean ± SD	p	Mean ± SD	p
Total SLNs	166	0.203 ± 0.166	N.A.	0.050 ± 0.049	N.A.	0.119 ± 0.087	N.A.
Non-metastatic SLNs	140	0.189 ± 0.152	0.0459	0.047 ± 0.047	0.0476	0.120 ± 0.094	0.3367
Metastatic SLNs	26	0.293 ± 0.237		0.070 ± 0.056		0.112 ± 0.043
SLNs of non-metastatic cases	90	0.159 ± 0.123	0.0006	0.045 ± 0.049	0.6565	0.114 ± 0.083	0.3042
SLNs of metastatic cases	76	0.258 ± 0.203		0.058 ± 0.050		0.126 ± 0.095
Non-metastatic SLNs	140
SLNs of non-metastatic cases	90	0.159 ± 0.123	0.0025	0.045 ± 0.049	0.3661	0.114 ± 0.083	0.5651
SLNs of metastatic cases	50	0.242 ± 0.181		0.051 ± 0.045		0.138 ± 0.122

N.A., not applicable; SLN, sentinel lymph node; LVD, lumphatic vessel density; HEVD, high endothelial venule density; SD, standard deviation. The subsets of SLN in relation to LVDs and HEVDwere analyzed using Mann-Whitney U-test. Patients with positive sentinel lymph node metastasis, non-sentinel lymph node metastasis, or nodal recurrence were defiened as lymph node metastasis-positive cases.