Yoshimura et al (2004) examined 87 surgically treated patients with colorectal cancer and found that HIF-2α but not HIF-1α expression predicted prognosis in univariate analysis. Other studies in nonsmall cell lung cancer and malignant melanomas showed that HIF-2α expression was related to a poor outcome when HIF-1α was not (Giatromanolaki et al, 2001, 2003). Here, HIF1A is linked to lung cancer.