Overexpression of polo-like kinase1 predicts a poor prognosis in hepatocellular carcinoma patients

Table 1 Correlations between PLK1 mRNA expression and clinicopathologic variables by Mann-Whitney U test

Factors	n	PLK1 mRNA		P
		Positive	Negative
Gender
Male	114	93	21	0.650
Female	21	18	3
Age (yr)
≤ 40	65	53	12	0.842
> 40	70	58	12
Liver cirrhosis
Yes	109	93	16	0.055
No	26	18	8
HBsAg
Positive	96	80	16	0.598
Negative	39	31	8
AFP (ng/mL)
≤ 400	51	45	6	0.156
> 400	84	66	18
Venous invasion
+ (cases)	53	48	5	0.042
- (cases)	82	63	19
Edmondson stage
I-II	56	41	15	0.022
III-IV	79	70	9
Tumor size (cm)
≤ 5. 0	36	28	8	0.417
> 5. 0	99	83	16
Tumor nodule
Single tumor nodule	77	70	7	0.002
Multiple tumor nodule	58	41	17

HBsAg: Hepatitis B surface antigen; AFP: α-fetoprotein.

Table 2 Correlation of several clinicopathological factors and of PLK1 mRNA expression group with patient survival (log-rank test)

Factors	P-value
Gender	0.155
Age	0.125
Liver cirrhosis	0.746
HBsAg	0.766
AFP	0.416
Venous invasion	< 0.001
Edmondson stage	0.001
Tumor size (cm)	0.183
Tumor nodule	0.018
PLK1 expression	0.003

Table 3 Multivariate survival analysis by Cox’s proportional-hazard model for PLK1

	Relative risk	95.0% CI	P-value
Venous invasion	4.848	2.649-8.871	< 0.001
High Edmondson stage	1.929	1.069-3.482	0.029
Multiple tumor nodule	2.377	1.384-4.082	0.002
PLK1 positive expression	3.507	1.386-8.874	0.008