STAT3 and metastatic malignant neoplasm in the lymph nodes: The results showed that the presence of lymph node metastasis had a statistically significant association with p-STAT3 overexpression (OR: 2.43, 95% CI: 1.18–5.01, P = 0.02, I2 = 79%) (Fig 3); however, p-STAT3 expression was not associated with the other clinicopathological parameters in colorectal cancer patients, including TNM stage (III-IV versus I-II: OR: 1.51, 95% CI: 0.88–2.58, P = 0.14, I2 = 67%), tumor differentiation (poorly versus well-moderately OR: 0.90, 95% CI: 0.46–1.75, P = 0.75, I2 = 64%), and gender (female versus male OR: 0.97, 95% CI: 0.79–1.20, P = 0.80, I2 = 0%) (Fig 4).