Patients with Ep-CAM negative, moderately differentiated colon cancers (Grade 2) showed a significantly inferior tumour-specific survival (OR 5.421, 95% CI 1.685–17.442, P=0.0014, n=284), whereas in the other subgroups patients with strongly Ep-CAM expressing tumours showed no such trend towards a better survival. The gene discussed is EPCAM; the disease is malignant colon neoplasm.