Elevated tumor and serum levels of the hypoxia-associated protein osteopontin are associated with prognosis for soft tissue sarcoma patients

Table 3 Association of serum and tumor OPN levels with clinical parameters in soft tissue sarcoma patients

Category	Serum OPN protein level in ng/ml		Tumor OPN protein level in ng/mg		Tumor OPN mRNA level in molecules/pg HPRT
	≤ 516.54	>516.54	≤ 34.34	>34.34	≤ 0.576	>0.576
Total	21	65	20	60	17	51
Tumor stage	p = 0.004*		p = 0.06		p = 0.21
I	8	6	7	6	5	7
II	10	27	7	25	7	19
III	2	24	4	22	5	17
IV	1	8	2	7	0	8
Tumor type	p = 0.002*		p = 0.07		p = 0.19
LS	12	9	10	11	5	13
FS+MFH	4	20	3	17	6	11
NS	0	8	2	5	2	1
RMS+LMS	3	19	4	18	3	17
Other STS	2	9	1	9	1	9
Tumor size	p = 0.03*		p = 0.85		p = 0.24
T1	6	6	3	8	1	9
T2	15	59	17	52	16	42
Distant metastasis	p = 0.12		p = 0.82		p = 0.14
M0	21	58	18	55	17	45
M1	0	7	2	5	0	6
Relapse	p = 0.41		p = 0.02*		p = 0.88
R0	15	40	17	34	12	35
R1	6	25	3	26	5	16
Follow-up
Alive	14	29	16	21	11	23
Dead	7	36	4	39	6	28
Kaplan-Meier analysis	p = 0.04*		p = 0.007*		p = 0.2
mean survival in months	103	60	68	58	72	65
Cox's-Regression model	p < 0.05*		p = 0.01*		p = 0.21
RR	2.2		3.7		1.7
CI	1.0-5.1		1.3-10.4		0.7-4.3

p* value was significant, when p < 0.05. Abbreviations: OPN: osteopontin, LS: liposarcoma, MFH: malignant fibrous histiocytoma; FS: fibrosarcoma; NS: neurogenic sarcoma; LMS: leiomyosarcoma; RMS: rhabdomyosarcoma; STS: soft tissue sarcoma; RR: relative risk of tumor-related death; CI: confidence interval of tumor-related death.

ISSN: 1471-2407