CASP3 and neoplasm: In contrast, patients with moderate cell differentiation (p = 0.029) or small tumor size (T1 + T2, p = 0.048) had significantly shorter DFS when they co-expressed either positive cleaved caspase-3 or/and higher caspase-3 compared to those who had negative cleaved caspase-3 and lower caspase-3 expression (Fig 6), implying that the roles of cleaved caspase-3 and caspase-3 might be varied in OTSCC patients, depending on tumor stage and microenvironment.