The intensity of SPARC staining increased from benign (n = 96), non-disseminated NPC (n = 23), low metastatic/invasive cancer (n = 153), to high metastatic/invasive cancer (n = 83), with a respective median staining intensity of 1.2 (standard error (s.e.), 0.1, 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.3–1.6, 1.5 (s.e., 0.2, 95% CI, 1.4–2.2), 2.1 (s.e., 0.4, 95%CI, 1.7–2.5) and 2.8 (s.e., 0.3, 95% CI, 2.6–2.8), respectively (Fig. 6B). Here, SPARC is linked to nasopharyngeal carcinoma.