STAT3 and metastatic malignant neoplasm in the lymph nodes: In the results of Western blot, the high expression of STAT3 in AEG was positively correlated with pTNM stage (pI+pII: 0.5009 ± 0.10397, pIII: 0.8079 ± 0.6451, P < 0.05, Table 2, Figure 6), but no significant correlation was found between STAT3 and gender, age, tumor differentiation, depth of invasion (pT), or lymph node metastasis (pN).