TIMP1 and metastatic malignant neoplasm in the lymph nodes: Clinicopathological correlation analysis revealed that high TIMP1 expression was significantly associated with lymph node metastasis (p = 0.043) and distant metastasis (p = 0.008), but showed no significant associations with gender, age, tumor size, tumor infiltration depth, or TNM stage (all p > 0.05; Additional file: Table S5).