IGFBP3 and neoplasm: Although the ORs for age, gender, location, and tumor size (Fig. 4, age: OR = 0.980, 95% CI: 0.520–1.860; gender: OR = 1.250, 95% CI: 0.630–2.480; location: OR = 1.145, 95% CI: 0.568–2.307; tumor size: OR = 1.650, 95% CI: 0.900–3.010) were higher than 1, all their corresponding p were higher than 0.05, which demonstrated that for esophageal cancer patients, no significant association was detected between the low IGFBP-3 level and the age, gender, tumor location, tumor size of patients.