Table 1.

Serum hepcidin level in lymph node metastasis

	Increase (%)	Not increase (%)
N0	18 (58.1)	13 (41.9)
N1 + N2	19 (86.4)*	3 (13.6)

^*P < 0.05. The χ2 test revealed a greater increase in serum hepcidin levels in lymph node metastasis N1 and N2, compared with N0. We measured the serum hepcidin concentration in 16 healthy individuals, and normalized the 95% confidence interval (CI). The 95% CI was from 9.25 to 22.80 ng/mL; the sensitivity.and specificity was 44.4% and 90.5%, respectively. Concentrations that were higher than this value were considered to have increased.