The propensity of T cells to undergo spontaneous apoptosis was measured by Annexin V binding and flow cytometry in several cohorts of patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), and in these pre-clinical studies, the frequency of Annexin V-binding CD8+T cells was shown to discriminate patients with cancer from normal controls (Tsukishiro et al., 2003). This evidence concerns the gene ANXA5 and cancer.