Giralt et al (2007) demonstrated that VEGF positivity is an indicator of poor disease-free survival following preoperative radiochemotherapy, while Nozue et al (2001) described an association between post-treatment VEGF overexpression and distant metastasis. Qiu et al (2000) found no correlation between pretreatment VEGF expression and tumour response in 72 patients undergoing long-course neoadjuvant radiotherapy. In a previous work on the same, yet smaller series of patients, we not only identified VEGF but also Bcl-2 as significant predictors of tumour regression (Zlobec et al, 2005). The gene discussed is VEGFA; the disease is neoplasm.