The associations of survival time with gender, age, tumor location, tumor size, TNM stage, and the 8 immunohistochemical markers (CK, EMA, NSE, Syn, CgA, CD56, TTF-1 and S-100) were analyzed with nonparametric test (Komolgorov-Smirnov method), and none of them was statistically significant (P < 0.05, two-sided probability)' [see Additional file 1]'. Here, NCAM1 is linked to neoplasm.