VEGFA and neoplasm: For univariate analyses, patients with low-grade tumours (P=0.002), tumours less than 5 cm in size (P=0.0001), no lymph node involvement (P=0.0001), less vessel involvement (P=0.01–0.001), low total VEGF level (P=0.002), low free VEGF level (P=0.047), high sVEGFR-1 level (P=0.04) and a high S/V ratio (P=0.008) experienced favourable DFS (Table 3).