Univariate analyses, corroborated by a review of the relevant clinical literature, demonstrated that increasing age, male gender, weight loss, reporting blood in the stools, the absence of anal pain, changes in bowel habit to harder stools, smoking, drinking alcohol, raised blood pressure, raised white blood count and raised serum MMP9 concentration were all significantly associated with the presence of neoplasia (Table 2). The gene discussed is MMP9; the disease is neoplasm.