We also examined the survival significance of Dicer expression level in normal mucosa in a multivariate model including gender, age and tumour site (Table 1), as well as stage (non-lymph node metastasis vs. metastasis) and histological type (non-mucinous vs. mucinous carcinoma), the increased Dicer level was still significantly related to poor survival (P = 0.002, RR 3.447, 95% CI 1.588 - 7.481). This evidence concerns the gene DICER1 and metastatic malignant neoplasm in the lymph nodes.