Interestingly, our results demonstrated that increased ERK5 steady-state levels and NF-κB activation were significantly correlated with increased depth of invasion (P<0.05) and with the presence of lymph node metastasis (P<0.05) and distant metastasis (P<0.01), and no significant association was seen for gender, age at presentation or with tumour location (Table 1). The gene discussed is NFKB1; the disease is metastatic malignant neoplasm in the lymph nodes.