The association of protein expression with complete pathologic response (Table 2) demonstrated that negative VEGF expression (P-value=0.004, OR (95% CI)=0.23 (0.09–0.63)) and EGFR positivity (P-value=0.003, OR (95% CI)=5.78 (1.85–18.07)) were significantly associated with complete tumour response after correction for multiple comparisons while p53, APAF-1 and Bcl-2 demonstrated no predictive ability for the outcome. Here, APAF1 is linked to neoplasm.