CD44+/CD24- tumor cells were present in 103 of the 147 (70.1%) tumors, but absent from the other 44 (29.9%), with the proportion of tumor cells expressing this phenotype ranging from a few to 70%, with a median proportion of 5.8%, and this median proportion was selected to categorize patients as CD44+/CD24- tumor cells high group and CD44+/CD24- tumor cells low group according to cutoff definition. Here, CD44 is linked to neoplasm.