Further relationship analysis indicated that circulating LINC00312 expression was strongly associated with lymph node metastasis, cancer thrombus, STAS status, and pathological type, but not with age, gender, smoking history, tumor size, tumor differentiation, TNM stages, and Ki-67 expression (Fig. 4B-L; Table 2). Here, MKI67 is linked to metastatic malignant neoplasm in the lymph nodes.