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Fig. 3 | BMC Cancer

Fig. 3

From: Validity and prognostic significance of sperm protein 17 as a tumor biomarker for epithelial ovarian cancer: a retrospective study

Fig. 3

Serum Sp17 concentration compared to histology and tissue expression. a Distribution of serum Sp17 concentration in benign ovarian neoplasms, borderline ovarian tumors (BOTs), and epithelial ovarian carcinomas (EOCs). The serum concentration of Sp17 is plotted in standard box and whisker plots on a log 10 scale by histology. No significant difference was found between the serum Sp17 concentration when comparing benign ovarian neoplasms, BOTs, and EOCs. ANOVA test showed that there was a significant difference (p < 0.001) in serum Sp17 concentration among the four main histologic subtypes of EOC: serous, mucinous, endometrioid, and clear cell. Box (interquartile range) encompasses 25th–75th percentile, solid black line indicates median and the whiskers indicate the lowers and highest data values that are still within the 25th and 75th percentile value plus 1.5 times the interquartile range, respectively. The outliers are represented as separate data points. Numbers in parentheses indicate number of cases included in the analysis. b Distribution of serum Sp17 concentration by tissue expression of Sp17. There were 65 patients with both serum and ovarian tissue available, which included benign, borderline, and malignant ovarian neoplasms. The ovarian tissue underwent immunohistochemical (IHC) staining for Sp17 and any expression was considered a positive result. The matching sera for these patients were analyzed for Sp17 concentration using ELISA and the concentration converted to a log 10 scale and represented here in box and whisker plots. There was a significant difference in serum Sp17 levels between IHC positive neoplasms compared to IHC negative neoplasms (p = 0.027), with IHC positive neoplasms showing higher SP17 levels. Box (interquartile range) encompasses 25th–75th percentile, solid black line indicates median and the whiskers indicate the range. Numbers in parentheses indicate number of cases included in the analysis

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