When compared to normal esophagus tissue, the negative expression of NEFH in adenocarcinoma (75%, 15/20) (P<0.001), squamous cell carcinoma (66.6%, 12/18) (P = 0.002), and metastatic cancer (88.8%, 8/9) (P<0.001) was statistically significant but this was not the case in hyperplasia (20%, 2/10) (P = 0.477) (Fig. 1h). This evidence concerns the gene NEFH and metastatic malignant neoplasm.