. 2022 Feb 21;41:71. doi: 10.1186/s13046-021-02237-6

Table 3.

Univariate and multivariate analysis of Disease-free Survival (DFS) in PDAC patients (n = 161)

Variables	Characteristics	Univariate analysis			Multivariate analysis
Variables	Characteristics	HR	95% CI	p value	HR	95% CI	p value
Age	< 60 (ref)
	≥ 60	1.125	0.820-1.545	0.461
Gender	Male (ref)
	Female	0.874	0.637-1.200	0.402
Differentiation	Well (ref)
	Moderate	1.878	1.112-3.171	0.047^*	1.688	0.862-3.306	0.127
	Poor	2.131	1.251-3.630	0.020^*	1.824	0.903-3.688	0.094
TNM stage	I (ref)
	II	1.279	0.867-1.886	0.236	0.996	0.642-1.544	0.986
	III	1.744	0.980-3.104	0.032^*	1.142	0.629-2.075	0.662
Lymph node metastasis ^a	Negative (ref)
Lymph node metastasis ^a	Positive	1.627	1.185-2.234	0.002^**
Perineural invasion	Negative (ref)
Perineural invasion	Positive	1.269	0.824-1.955	0.310
Long-term smoking ^b	No (ref)
Long-term smoking ^b	Yes	1.788	0.989-3.232	0.013^*	2.151	1.305-3.545	0.003^**
High-fat diet	No (ref)
High-fat diet	Yes	1.395	0.845-2.304	0.136
Chronic pancreatitis	No (ref)
Chronic pancreatitis	Yes	1.471	0.899-2.407	0.073
circCUL2 expression	Low (ref)
circCUL2 expression	High	1.982	1.418-2.771	<0.001^***	2.073	1.460-2.942	<0.001^***
Abbreviations: HR = hazard ratio; 95% CI = 95% confidence interval; TNM = tumor node metastasis; ref = reference. ^a As lymph node metastasis is included in the TNM stage, we didn’t include it in the multivariate analysis. ^b Long-term smoking (duration ≥ 29 years). Cox regression analysis, * p < 0.05, p < 0.01, * p<0.001.