Table 1. Correlation among phosphorylated Akt1, phosphorylated STAT3 and expression of IL6 in NSCLC patients.

	pAkt negative	pAkt positivea
IL-6/pSTAT3 negative	34	9
IL-6/pSTAT3 positiveb,c	10	7
Total	44	16

^aAkt activation was evaluated with phospho-specific antibodies (pS473) and scored as negative (<10% of the tumour cells with weak, focal immunopositivity or absence of staining) and positive (>10% of tumour cells with strong or diffuse immunopositivity).

^bIL-6 was evaluated with specific antibodies and scored as negative (<10% of the tumour cells with weak or absence of staining) and positive (>10% of tumour cells with strong or diffuse immunopositivity).

^cSTAT3 activation was evaluated with phospho-specific antibodies (Y705) and scored as negative (<5% of the tumour cells with weak or absence of staining) and positive (>5% of tumour cells with strong or diffuse immunopositivity).

n = 94; p = 0.044