MET and metastatic malignant neoplasm in the lymph nodes: Other clinical pathologic variable factors correlated with poor survival included advanced AJCC stage, advanced lymph node metastasis, higher T stage, and older age (Figure 5B), moreover, the results of multivariate analysis shown that HGF remain independently associated with overall survival, with a HR of 1.525 (95% CI: 1.024-2.272, P =0.038), along with c-MET, age, AJCC stage, T classification and lymph node metastasis (Figure 5C).