Figure 1.

Pairwise comparison of post-progression survival for different tumor progression patterns. Stratification of patients by comparing the following patterns of progression: local vs. liver only (A); local vs. lung only (B); local vs. others (C); local vs. local + distant (D); local vs. multiple (E); liver only vs. lung only (F); liver only vs. others (G); liver only vs. local + distant (H); liver only vs. multiple (I); lung only vs. others (J); lung only vs. local + distant (K); lung only vs. multiple (L); others vs. local + distant (M); others vs. multiple (N) and local + distant vs. multiple (O). Landmark analysis was used to analyze survival differences whose survival curves were crossed. For the comparisons of survival rates between local recurrence and other sites, liver-only metastasis and multiple metastases, lung-only metastasis, and multiple metastases, the former had significantly higher survival rates (P < 0.05), compared with the latter after 1 year since tumor progression, which was used as the landmark point for survival analyses. Also, patients with local progression had significantly higher survival rates compared with those with multiple analyses while survival rates were similar between other comparison groups. Overall, multiple metastases contributed to the poorest survival among these progression patterns.