Won et al. BMC Cancer 2010, 10:564 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2407/10/564 Table 1 Clinico-pathological characteristics of the biliary tract cancer patients All patients (n = 161) No. of patients % GB cancer (n = 65) No. of patients % Bile duct cancer (n = 96) No. of patients % 61.9 ± 9.8 63.4 ± 11.4 60.9 ± 8.5 95 66 127 34 70 51 13 82 53 60 56 66 14 24 59.0 41.0 78.9 21.1 43.4 31.6 8.0 50.9 32.9 37.2 35.0 41.3 8.7 15.0 % 53.3 46.7 22.1 77.9 44.7 55.3 55.1 44.9 32.8 67.2 GB, gallbladder; SD, standard deviation; LN, lymph node. tumors, positive TP and p53 staining was associated with an advanced stage compared to tumors with nega- tive staining (p = 0.027 and p = 0.009, respectively). Other significant correlations with clinico-pathological variables were not observed. Table 2 Immunohistochemical staining for tumors stratified by anatomical sites All patients GB cancer Bile duct cancer p-value No. % No. % No. 72 55 35 96 54 75 78 42 39 74 56.7 32 61.5 43.3 20 38.5 26.7 18 33.3 73.3 36 66.7 41.9 20 37.7 58.1 33 62.3 65.0 40 78.4 35.0 11 21.6 34.5 18 36.7 65.5 31 63.3 40 35 17 60 34 42 38 31 21 43 GB, gallbladder; TP, thymidine phosphorylase; ERCC1, excision repair cross complementing protein 1. Characteristics Age, years Mean ± SD Sex Male Female Resectability Curative Palliative Adjuvant therapy Histopathology Well differentiated Vascular invasion Perineural invasion Lymphatic invasion LN metastases TNM stage I II III IV Variable P53 (n = 127) Positive Negative Cyclin D1 (n = 131) Positive Negative Survivin (n = 129) Positive Negative TP (n = 120) Positive Negative ERCC1 (n = 113) Positive Negative 69.8 30.2 81.3 18.7 41.6 29.1 8.3 69.7 30.2 36.4 35.8 44.2 10.5 9.5 Page 4 of 8 p-value 0.265 0.001 0.242 0.229 0.243 0.606 0.001 0.161 0.381 0.105 28 37 49 16 30 23 5 15 24 25 22 24 4 15 43.1 56.9 75.4 24.6 46.1 35.3 7.6 23.0 36.9 38.4 33.8 36.9 6.2 23.1 67 29 78 18 40 28 8 67 29 35 34 42 10 9 0.231 0.109 0.271 0.006 0.406 Clinical outcome: recurrence & survival analysis Among 127 patients with curative resection, the assess- ment of recurrence was possible in 117 patients. Seventy patients (59.8%) developed recurrence at a median of 14 months. Recurrence occurred in 50 patients (65.7%) with BDC and 20 patients (48.7%) with GB cancer (p = 0.049). The median TTR for patients with GB cancer and BDC were 14 and 17 months, respectively (p = 0.636) (Figure 2A). The patterns of recurrence were classified into three types; local, regional, and distant recurrence. Local recurrence is defined as recurrence of the cancer at the resection sites. Regional recurrence is defined as recurrence at the lymph nodes near the pri- mary site. Distant recurrence is defined as the recur- rence of the cancer in an organ distant from the primary site. Local recurrence was more common in BDC (32.0% vs 5.0%), while recurrence as a distant metastasis was more common in GB cancer (35.0% vs 18.0%) (p = 0.041). The correlation analysis with protein expression showed that there was no significant associa- tion of protein expression with recurrence rate, pattern, or TTR. The median OS time of patients with GB cancer and BDC was 20 and 21 months, respectively. There was no significant difference in OS (p = 0.728) (Figure 2B). In univariate analysis, the significant factors affecting OS were differentiation, vascular invasion, perineural inva- sion, lymphatic invasion, lymph node metastasis, and