Elevated preoperative serum levels of CEA and CA19-9, higher tumor stage, presence of lymph node metastasis and venous invasion, advanced gastric cancer type, higher histologic grade, and NGF- and HO1-positivity were significantly associated with both shorter OS and RFS of gastric carcinoma patients by univariate analysis (Table 2). Here, HMOX1 is linked to metastatic malignant neoplasm in the lymph nodes.