CBLB and metastatic malignant neoplasm in the lymph nodes: The multivariate Cox proportional hazards model (forward selection) was fitted using all 12 clinical and pathological variables, and found that high Cbl-b expression (HR, 2.048; 95% CI: 1.285–3.266; P=0.003), serum CA19-9 level ≥37 U/mL (HR, 2.765; 95% CI: 1.424–5.369; P=0.003), lymph node metastasis (HR, 1.713; 95% CI: 1.112–2.638; P=0.015), and poor tumor differentiation (HR, 2.299; 95% CI: 1.354-3.905; P=0.002) were independently associated with the poor OS (Table 3).