Figure 1

Serum levels of (a) lipocalin-2 and (b) MMP-9 depicted as box-plots. The levels of both markers were compared between breast cancer cases ( N = 303) and age and sex matched healthy controls ( N = 74). Lines inside boxes represent the median value and each box represents the interquartile range. Lines extend to minimum and maximum values excluding extreme values (circles). P-value was calculated from non-parametric Wilcoxon signed rank test.