Tumour-associated macrophages are known to contain many proangiogenic factors, such as VEGF (Leek et al, 2000), TNF-α (Pusztai et al, 1994), CXCL-8 (Fujimoto et al, 2000), bFGF (Stupack et al, 1999) and proteases such as MMP-2 and MMP-9 (Pollard, 2004). Here, MMP9 is linked to neoplasm.