Importance of SALL4 in the development and prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma

Table 1 Expression of SALL4 in hepatocellular carcinoma tissue, non-cancerous cirrhotic tissue, and liver hemangioma tissue

SALL4	Hemangioma tissue(n = 10)	Adjacent non-cancerous cirrhotic tissue(n = 44)	HCC tissue(n = 126)
-	10	42	68
+	0	2	27
++	0	0	21
+++	0	0	10
P value	0.496	0	0.009

P value was obtained by non-parametric test. P = 0.496 represents hemangioma group vs adjacent non-cancerous cirrhotic group; P < 0.001 represents adjacent non-cancerous cirrhotic group vs HCC group; P = 0.009 represents HCC group vs hemangioma group. HCC: Hepatocellular carcinoma; SALL4: Sal-like protein 4.

Table 2 Relationship between the expression of SALL4 and clinical characteristics in hepatocellular carcinoma patients

Parameters	SALL4 (-/+)	P value1	P value2
Clinical stages
Ia	11/7
Ib	17/8
IIa	21/13
IIb	11/18
IIIa	8/12	0.034	0.006
Histological differentiation
Well	9/4
Moderate	30/23
Poor	29/31	0.344	0.069
BCLC stages
A	53/29
B	3/2
C	12/27	0.001	0.000
Sex
Male	57/50
Female	11/8	0.931	0.932
Age (yr)
< 50	24/21
≥ 50	44/37	0.918	0.918
Tumor diameter (cm)
< 3	6/6
3-5	22/12
5-10	24/22
≥ 10	16/18	0.176	0.042
Platelet
(× 109/L)
< 100	9/11
100-200	47/32
200-300	9/12
≥ 300	3/3	0.231	0.863
Vascular invasion
With	11/21
Without	57/37	0.004	0.004
HBsAg
Positive	58/51
Negative	10/7	0.487	0.490
HBeAb
Positive	28/19
Negative	40/39	0.359	0.361
Child-Pugh
Child A	67/57
Child B	1/1	0.822	0.823
AFP (μg/L)
< 7	9/7
7-100	26/8
100-400	10/12
400-800	5/4
800-1210	0/2
≥ 1210	18/25	0.013	0.003

¹P value was obtained by non-parametric test;

²P value was obtained by Spearman correlation. AFP: α-fetoprotein; SALL4: Sal-like protein 4.

Table 3 Survival time vs SALL4 expression in postoperative hepatocellular carcinoma patients

SALL4	Died/total	Median survival time (mo)	P value
-	32/68	39
+	18/27	25
++	16/21	23
+++	9/10	9	0.000

SALL4: Sal-like protein 4.

Table 4 Multivariable analysis results in postoperative hepatocellular carcinoma patients

Parameters	P value	Relative risk	95%CI
Clinical stages	0.002	1.547	1.169-2.047
histological differentiation	0.003	1.823	1.218-2.728
BCLC stage	0.876	1.028	0.725-1.459
AFP	0.046	1.158	1.002-1.338
Tumor size	0.503	1.133	0.786-1.635
Vascular invasive	0.531	0.796	0.389-1.627
SALL4	0.029	1.301	1.028-1.646

SALL4: Sal-like protein 4; AFP: α-fetoprotein.

Table 5 Survival time vs combined α-fetoprotein level and SALL4 expression in postoperative hepatocellular carcinoma patients

Group	Cases	Median survival time(mo)	P value
AFP (-)/SALL4 (-)	9	41
AFP (-)/SALL4 (+)	7	38
AFP (+)/SALL4 (-)	59	31
AFP (+)/SALL4 (+)	51	12	0.000

AFP (-) < 7 μg/L; AFP (+) ≥ 7 μg/L. AFP: α-fetoprotein; SALL4: Sal-like protein 4.

Table 6 Survival time vsα-fetoprotein level in SALL4-positive postoperative hepatocellular carcinoma patients

AFP (μg/L)	Cases	Median survival time (mo)	P value
< 7	7	30
7-100	8	26
100-400	12	14
400-800	4	10
800-1210	2	24
≥ 1210	25	7	0.003

AFP: α-fetoprotein.