SPOP and metastatic malignant neoplasm in the lymph nodes: The MSP of NSCLC showed that SPOP promoter methylation was found in 61 of the 82 NSCLC patients and was associated with the pathology grade, while no correlation was found between the SPOP promoter methylation extent and age, gender, histologic type, smoking status, staging, and lymph node metastasis (Table 1).