Table III.

The association between plasma miRNA expression levels and clinicopathological factors of patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

		miR-21			miR-223			miR-375			miR-25			miR-100
Variable	n	High	Low	P-value	High	Low	P-value	High	Low	P-value	High	Low	P-value	High	Low	P-value
Total	125	39	86		42	83		32	93		38	87		36	89
Sex				0.213			0.134			0.998			0.802			0.753
Male	76	21	55		23	53		19	57		21	55		19	57
Female	49	18	31		19	30		13	36		17	32		17	32
Age				0.959			0.358			0.464			0.716			0.423
<63	59	20	39		20	39		16	43		19	40		16	43
≥63	66	19	47		22	44		16	50		19	47		20	46
Tumor location				0.097			0.123			0.668			0.003			0.928
Upper	22	7	15		8	14		5	17		6	16		4	18
Middle	65	17	48		16	49		20	45		16	49		24	41
Lower	31	15	16		18	13		4	27		15	16		6	25
T stage				0.006			0.002			<0.001			0.001			<0.001
Tis-T1	50	25	25		27	32		3	47		25	25		5	45
T2	20	6	14		4	16		10	10		3	17		8	12
T3-4	48	8	40		11	37		14	34		9	39		18	30
N stage				0.122			0.001			<0.001			<0.001			<0.001
Negative	86	33	53		38	48		16	70		34	52		20	66
Positive	32	6	26		4	28		11	21		3	29		11	21
M stage				0.906			0.158			0.075			0.513			0.126
Negative	116	38	78		41	75		27	89		36	80		31	85
Positive	5	1	4		1	4		2	3		1	4		1	4
TNM stage				0.001			<0.001			<0.001			<0.001			<0.001
0/I	54	29	25		32	22		3	51		28	26		6	48
II	38	4	34		6	32		16	22		7	31		16	22
III/IV	29	6	23		4	25		10	19		2	27		10	19
Differentiation grade				0.453			0.654			0.016			0.772			0.012
Well	15	7	8		6	9		1	14		3	12		1	14
Moderate	46	14	32		14	32		9	37		17	29		11	35
Poor	50	16	34		20	30		16	34		13	37		18	32

TNM, tumor-node-metastasis; miR/miRNA, microRNA.