Table 2.

Association between clinicopathological factors and TGF-β1/p-smad2/3 expression in ESCC patients

Characteristic	Number	TGF-β1 expression		P-value	p-smad2/3 epression		P-value
		− (0–5)	+ (≥ 6)		− (0–5)	+ (≥ 6)
Gender
Male	55	30	25	0.834	32	23	0.703
Female	37	21	16		23	14
Age
< 58	48	21	27	0.019*	30	18	0.579
≥ 58	44	30	14		25	19
Differentiation
Poor	19	7	12	0.040*	9	10	0.353
Moderate	42	29	13		28	14
High	31	15	16		18	13
Depth of invision
Mucosa	3	3	0	0.001**	3	0	0.342
Muscularis	43	31	12		24	19
Adventitia	46	17	29		28	18
Clincial stage
I–II	59	39	20	0.006**	40	19	0.036*
III–IV	33	12	21		15	18
Lymph node metastasis
PN −	40	21	19	0.619	28	12	0.08
PN +	52	30	22		27	25
Distant metastasis
M0	83	46	37	0.994	51	32	0.323
M1	9	5	4		4	5

^*P < 0.05

^**p < 0.01