Moreover, by taking into account the normal and intestinal metaplasia tissue to examine TF expression along the gastric MACS, the increasing trend was shown to be highly significant in both approaches; P <0.0001 by JTOM for both I s and I m scales ( Figure 2 ).
The differences in N staging had borderline significance, P =0.054, with 31% of patients having positive lymph-node status compared with 19% patients with negative lymph-node status expressing TF>310.
However, a borderline significant trend was seen for a relationship between TF expression and T ( P =0.07) and N stage ( P =0.06) for diffuse-type gastric adenocarcinoma.