Further analysis showed that the elevated NUAK1 expression was positively correlated with T stage (primary tumor invasion depth), N stage (lymph node metastasis) and pathological TNM stage but has no correlation with age, gender, tumor location or differentiation (Fig. 1E–G and Additional file 1: Table S2). This evidence concerns the gene NUAK1 and metastatic malignant neoplasm in the lymph nodes.