Multivaritate Cox regression analyses showed that medium-score and high-score stromal POSTN expression, rather than epithelial POSTN expression, were independent risk factors for DFS and DSS in Shanghai cohort, adjusted for the covariates including TNM stage, tumor differentiation grade, and postoperative chemotherapy; higher stromal POSTN expression also predicted a poorer DSS in Guangzhou cohort independently, as shown in Table 2. Here, POSTN is linked to neoplasm.