Recent studies have demonstrated that VEGFR-3 or D2-40 immunostained microvessels was associated with either node metastases (Nathanson et al, 2000) or BMVD (Choi et al, 2005) and a high peritumoural lymphatic vessel density is associated with a poor outcome in human breast cancer (Bono et al, 2004). The gene discussed is FLT4; the disease is breast cancer.