Figure 3

The prognostic significance of high MMP-13 protein expression in the entire patient population. The graphs show the effect of MMP-13 expression within cancer cells (A) and within peritumoral fibroblast cells (B) on patient overall survival (Log-rank test) and stratified analysis by lymph nodes status (C &D) and Her-2/neu status (E &F). Both high MMP-13 expression in cancer cells (A) and fibroblasts (B) associated with decreased overall survival (p = 0.0008 and 0.0001, respectively). When patients' OS were stratified by lymph node status and Her-2/neu status, MMP-13 expression in cancer cells was associated with reduced OS in the Her-2/neu positive and negative (E, p = 0.0092 and p = 0.0154, respectively) and lymph node positive subgroups (D, p = 0.0041). However, MMP-13 expressed within fibroblasts only weakly affected OS of lymph node positive (D) and Her-2/neu negative subgroups (F, p = 0.04694 and 0.04461, respectively).