Indeed, in the Cox's proportional hazard model we found that the relative risk of death in patients having a tumour/stroma COX-2 IDV ratio >1 positivity showed a trend to be higher (relative risk 18.72, 95% CI=1.94–181.0) than that of patients with tumour COX-2 (relative risk 1.12, 95% CI=0.33–84.0) (Wald statistics: χ2=3.292; d.f.=1, P=0.069). Here, PTGS2 is linked to neoplasm.