As shown in Table 2, the OS of gastric cancer patients was significantly associated with lymph node metastasis (P = .011), pTNM stage (P = .010), SOX3 level (P = .001) and age (P = .029) by univariate analysis; however, multivariate analysis indicated that pTNM stage (P = .008), SOX3 level (P < .001) and age (P = .002) were the independent risk factors for the patient survival. The gene discussed is SOX3; the disease is metastatic malignant neoplasm in the lymph nodes.