APC and metastatic malignant neoplasm in the lymph nodes: The result showed that the association between APC promoter methylation and cancer stage was significant (pooled OR = 0.47, 95% CI: 0.28–0.80, P = 0.006, Figure 3), and similar result existed in the association between APC promoter methylation and lymph node metastasis (pooled OR = 0.55, 95% CI: 0.36–0.84, P = 0.005, Figure 4), which both suggested that APC promoter methylation could inhibit the cancer growth and metastasis.