Table 1.
Baseline patient characteristics and variations between centers
| Total | Center 1 | Center 2 | Center 3 | Center 4 | Center 5 | Center 6 | Center 7 | Center 8 | Center 9 | p value | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TOTAL, n (%) |
n = 649 (100%) |
n = 133 (20.5%) |
n = 27 (4.2%) |
n = 99 (15.3%) |
n = 21 (3.2%) |
n = 137 (21.1%) |
n = 97 (14.9%) |
n = 81 (12.5%) |
n = 11 (1.7%) |
n = 43 (6.6%) |
||
| Sex, n (%) | Female | 232 (35.7) | 45 (33.8) | 12 (44.4) | 37 (37.4) | 6 (28.6) | 52 (38.0) | 35 (36.1) | 28 (34.6) | 6 (54.5) | 11 (25.6) | 0.686* |
| Male | 417 (64.3) | 88 (66.2) | 15 (55.6) | 62 (62.6) | 15 (71.4) | 85 (62.0) | 62 (63.9) | 53 (65.4) | 5 (45.5) | 32 (74.4) | ||
| Age, median (range) | 65 (26–88) | 67 (31–87) | 69 (41–88) | 67 (26–86) | 65 (46–77) | 65 (39–86) | 64 (35–83) | 65 (44–82) | 55 (32–79) | 62 (44–80) | 0.112** | |
| cT, n (%) | 2 | 40 (6.2) | 7 (5.3) | 1 (3.7) | 7 (7.1) | 1 (4.8) | 11 (8.0) | 4 (4.1) | 6 (7.4) | 0 (0.0) | 3 (7.0) | 0.228** |
| 3 | 523 (80.6) | 101 (75.9) | 21 (77.8) | 75 (75.8) | 16 (76.2) | 112 (81.8) | 83 (85.6) | 65 (80.2) | 11 (100.0) | 39 (90.7) | ||
| 4 | 86 (13.3) | 25 (18.8) | 5 (18.5) | 17 (17.2) | 4 (19.0) | 14 (10.2) | 10 (10.3) | 10 (12.3) | 0 (0.0) | 1 (2.3) | ||
| cN, n (%) | 0 | 100 (15.4) | 6 (4.5) | 9 (33.3) | 20 (20.2) | 2 (9.5) | 31 (22.6) | 13 (13.4) | 10 (12.3) | 2 (18.2) | 7 (16.3) | < 0.001**, # |
| 1 | 170 (26.2) | 31 (23.3) | 7 (25.9) | 26 (26.3) | 6 (28.6) | 38 (27.7) | 23 (23.7) | 15 (18.5) | 7 (63.6) | 17 (39.5) | ||
| 2 | 379 (58.4) | 96 (72.2) | 11 (40.7) | 53 (53.5) | 13 (61.9) | 68 (49.6) | 61 (62.9) | 56 (69.1) | 2 (18.2) | 19 (44.2) | ||
*Calculated using the chi-squared test
** Calculated using the Kruskal–Wallis test
# Post hoc analysis using the pair-wise Mann–Whitney U test indicated that center 1 significantly differed from the other centers with respect to cN-stage (p < 0.001); no significant differences were detected between the remaining 8 centers