Table 3 Association of Osteopontin splice variants with cancer grade and stage in the literature. Only cancers with multiple evaluable reports for at least one splice form are listed. The left column displays the cancer type under study, the three blocks have the numbers for Osteopontin-a (OPN-a), Osteopontin-b (OPN-b), and Osteopontin-c (OPN-c). n = number of patients studied, χ² = result of the χ² test, p-value = result of the χ² test. A warning occurred when χ² was below 5. In all of those cases, the p-value according to Fisher’s exact test corroborated the results. Of note, the results from χ² test or Fisher’s exact test only inform on differences in counts, not on their direction. Bottom portion) meta-analysis for tumor stage. The last column in each section indicates the analysis of overall stage, stage T (tumor growth), stage N (lymph node involvement), or stage M (metastasis, no entries) Top portion) meta-analysis for tumor grade. Results in bold are considered significant at the 5% probability of error level

cancer

studies

n

category

low

medium

high

χ²

p-value

Fisher p-value

grade

breast

1

66

Grade 1&2

12

28

6

11.45

0.003263

0.002896

Grade 3&4

7

4

9

glioma

2

156

Grade 1&2

21

13

11

8.6761

0.01306

0.01299

Grade 3&4

28

31

52

lung

1

35

Grade 1&2

7

7

9

8.2031

1.66E-02

0.01238

Grade 3&4

3

9

0

all

5

358

Grade 1&2

76

63

70

2.5141

0.2845

0.2836

Grade 3&4

43

54

52

cancer

studies

n

category

low

medium

high

χ²

p-value

Fisher p-value

stage

breast

1

61

low

17

16

19

15.203

0.0005

0.000369

Stage T

high

0

9

0

breast

1

58

low

15

14

17

11.696

0.002886

0.002465

Stage N

high

2

10

0

lung

1

33

low

5

5

6

0.24265

0.8857

1

Stage

high

6

6

5

all

2

134

low

25

37

42

9.4449

0.008894

0.01332

Stage

high

16

7

7

cancer

studies

n

category

low

medium

high

χ²

p-value

Fisher p-value

grade

breast

1

66

Grade 1&2

15

14

17

2.7568

0.252

0.2632

Grade 3&4

6

10

4

glioma

2

156

Grade 1&2

23

12

10

17.511

0.000158

0.000193

Grade 3&4

22

31

58

lung

1

35

Grade 1&2

6

11

6

3.2794

0.194

0.1988

Grade 3&4

5

2

5

all

5

358

Grade 1&2

74

61

74

1.2698

0.53

0.2836

Grade 3&4

46

42

61

cancer

studies

n

category

low

medium

high

χ²

p-value

Fisher p-value

stage

breast

1

61

low

17

17

18

0.66816

0.716

0.9003

Stage T

high

3

4

2

breast

1

58

low

14

16

16

0.65034

0.7224

0.7878

Stage N

high

5

3

4

lung

1

33

low

5

6

5

0.24265

0.8857

1

Stage

high

6

5

6

all

2

134

low

19

32

53

23.953

6.29E-06

1.08E-05

Stage

high

19

6

5

cancer

studies

n

category

low

medium

high

χ²

p-value

Fisher p-value

grade

breast

4

521

Grade 1&2

121

88

83

8.7687

1.25E-02

1.24E-02

Grade 3&4

69

71

89

glioma

2

156

Grade 1&2

22

12

11

10.655

0.004857

0.005336

Grade 3&4

27

30

54

lung

2

101

Grade 1&2

24

34

20

4.1892

0.1231

0.1228

Grade 3&4

8

5

10

all

9

879

Grade 1&2

131

130

168

10.77

0.004584

0.004534

Grade 3&4

175

143

132

cancer

studies

n

category

low

medium

high

χ²

p-value

Fisher p-value

stage

breast

3

577

low

143

148

131

2.6299

0.2685

0.2737

Stage T

high

49

47

59

breast

2

204

low

46

46

47

0.59581

0.7424

0.7769

Stage N

high

7

9

6

lung

2

110

low

12

36

10

13.767

0.001024

0.000944

Stage

high

19

14

19

all

3

211

low

29

37

73

29.718

3.52E-07

1.03E-07

Stage

high

26

36

10