Overexpression of Bmi-1 is found to correlate with poor prognosis in the non-keratinising type of nasopharyngeal carcinoma, breast, and hepatocellular carcinoma, as well as in nervous system tumours such as oligodendrogliomas and medulloblastomas, and correlation with tumour stage has been reported in non-small-cell lung cancer (Kim et al, 2004; Leung et al, 2004; Song et al, 2006; Häyry et al, 2008; Vrzalikova et al, 2008; Wang et al, 2008). The gene discussed is BMI1; the disease is oligodendroglioma.