Patients with high CXCR4 tumour expression clearly had a worse outcome than those with low CXCR4 expression (OS: 9.7 months (95% CI: 6.0–13.4) vs 43.2 months (95% CI: 16.3–78.1), P=0.0006; DFS: 8.6 months (95% CI: 5.8–11.3) vs 12.4 months (95% CI: 10.7–14.0, P=0.067; Figure 3). Here, CXCR4 is linked to neoplasm.