Although we did not observe a positive expression linkage between POU5F1 and MMP-2, the higher expression of each molecule was significantly associated with the poor prognosis, which is consistent with previous studies that POU5F1 and MMP-2 were reported to become independent risk factors for poor prognosis in lung cancer [14], [31]–[33]. Here, POU5F1 is linked to lung carcinoma.