Higher p14 mRNA transcript levels were associated with non-cancerous background tissue specimens (median copy numbers: 103 vs. 4, p=0.0095), with better overall and disease-free survival, and in TNM2 stage tumours (TNM2 vs. TNM1, 27.2 vs. 3.5, p=0.049; TNM1/TNM2 vs. TNM3/4, 26 vs. 2, p=0.009).
WISP-1 transcripts were found at higher levels in the tumour samples than in the normal tissue (p=0.0015); higher in patients with Dukes stage B and C compared to Dukes A (p=0.017 and p=0.024, respectively); higher in patients with moderately and poorly differentiated cancers compared to the well differentiated cancers (p=0.020 and p=0.076, respectively and p=0.0035 when combined); higher in node positive tumours compared with the node negative (p=0.11) and in the patients with higher TNM staging (TNM 2, 3 and 4 compared to TNM 1 p=0.037).