Table 2. Characteristics of the included studies for the disease-free survival (DFS) analysis.

First author	Year	Country	Cancer	Stage	Follow up(M)	Case(N)	Treatment	Technique	Location of staining	Cut off	Disease-free Survival		NOS
											Univariate analysis	Multivariate analysis
											HR (95% CI)	HR (95% CI)
Hroyasu N	2015	Japan	AC	I- III	38.1*	101	pulmonectomy	IHC	Cytoplasm	>median score		1.72(1.00–2.99)	8
Guan XQ	2014	China	NSCLC	I-IV	60	500	pulmonectomy	IHC	Cytoplasm	score≥3	1.015(0.800–1.287)		8
Zhang H	2013	China	SCC	I- IIIa	51.5*	204	pulmonectomy	IHC	Cytoplasm	score≥4	1.474(1.117–1.944)	1.164(0.873–1.552)	8
Yasuhiro C	2011	Japan	NSCLC	I- III	53.7*	183	pulmonectomy	IHC	NR	≥50%	1.326(0.634–2.770)	1.144(0.535–2.443)	8

NSCLC: non-small cell lung cancer, SCC: squamous cell carcinoma, AC: adenocarcinoma, IHC: immunohistochemistry, NOS: Newcastle-Ottawwwa-Scale.

*: median follow-up time.