Figure 2.

Correlation between CK20 positivity in blood and bone marrow samples, respectively, and survival for patients with esophageal carcinoma. CK20 positivity in (A,B) blood (n = 27) and (C,D) bone marrow (n = 19) samples of EC patients was assessed by reverse transcription-nested polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and correlated with (A,C) overall survival and (B,D) tumor-specific survival. On the vertical dotted line at 60 months, the percentages of 5-year overall survival are shown in brackets. The p-values for the comparison of the cumulative survival probabilities of the two groups (CK20-positive versus CK20-negative) were calculated using the log-rank test. The horizontal dotted line at the cumulative survival probability of 0.5 gives the median survival and is given in months in square brackets.