An analysis of the combined expression patterns of the 3 proteins revealed that the presence of MTA3-negative/Snail-positive/E-cadherin-negative tumors (vs. other expression patterns) was associated with lymph node metastasis (P = 0.018), stage III disease (vs. stage I or II; P = 0.002), and a histologic differentiation (P = 0.008; Table 2). This evidence concerns the gene MTA3 and metastatic malignant neoplasm in the lymph nodes.