When comparing the positive tumour and non-tumour sections, concordance in the expression of p-mTOR was lost with enhanced tumour aggressiveness: 17 pT3/pT4 cases presented positive normal-like mucosal regions adjacent to the tumour sections, but p-mTOR expression was only observed in 6 (35.3%) of these cases (P=0.005, data not shown). Here, MTOR is linked to neoplasm.