We reported that deletion of the intermediate region between TMPRSS2 and ERG combined with duplication of the TMPRSS2–ERG fusion sequences is predictive of poor cancer-specific survival (Attard et al, 2008b), an observation supported by other studies (FitzGerald et al, 2008; Yoshimoto et al, 2008; Gopalan et al, 2009). Here, ERG is linked to cancer.