Raf kinase inhibitor protein combined with phosphorylated extracellular signal-regulated kinase offers valuable prognosis in gastrointestinal stromal tumor

Table 3 Analysis of factors affecting prognosis of gastrointestinal stromal tumors in Cox proportional-hazards regression models for overall survival, n = 63

Characteristic	n	Univariatea			Multivariate1
		HR	95%CI	P value	B	Exp (B)	P value
Sex
Male	34	0.87	0.32-2.34	0.783	0.004	1.004	0.994
Female	29
Age in yr
> 56	30	0.99	0.96-1.03	0.751	-0.011	0.989	0.609
≤ 56	33
Tumor location
Stomach	36	3.86	1.23-12.18	0.021	0.669	1.953	0.057
Duodenum	12
Jejunoileum	15
Tumor size in cm
< 2	11	2.32	1.32-4.07	0.003	0.734	2.083	0.037
2-5	19
6-10	18
> 10	14
NIH risk grade
Very low	10	2.32	1.32-4.07	0.002	1.393	4.025	0.014
Low	19
Moderate	10
High	24
Mitotic figures as /50 HPFs
0	11	1.7	1.06-2.70	0.026	0.179	1.196	0.505
1-4	36
5-10	5
> 10	11
RKIP expression
Positive	35	0.14	0.04-0.50	0.002	-2.064	0.127	0.061
Negative	28
P-ERK expression
Positive	36	3.63	1.03-12.73	0.044	1.761	5.821	0.041
Negative	27
P-MEK expression
Positive	28	1.78	0.66-4.79	0.252
Negative	35
RKIP and P-ERK co-expression2
Positive	25	0.34	012-0.94	0.037	2.427	11.32	0.044
Negative	38

¹Analysed factors were sex, age, tumor location, tumor size, National Institutes of Health (NIH) risk grades, mitotic figures, raf kinase inhibitory protein (RKIP), phosphorylated-extracellular-signal regulated kinase (P-ERK) expressions, RKIP and P-ERK co-expressions.

²Based on the expression of RKIP and P-ERK proteins in gastrointestinal stromal tumors specimens, we defined the cases with RKIP (-) and P-ERK (+) as negative, while the cases with RKIP (+) or P-ERK (-) as positive.

^aLog-rank test; P < 0.05 were considered statistically significant.

HPFs: High-power fields; HR: Hazard ratio; MAPK: Mitogen-activated protein kinase; P-MEK: Phosphorylated-MAPK\ERK kinase.