However, there were more high CXCR4 expression samples among patients with vascular invasion or lymph node metastasis (63.6 and 66.7%, respectively) than in the non-vascular invasion or lymph node metastasis groups (32.1 and 21.3%; P = 0.001 and P < 0.001 for the two groups, respectively). Here, CXCR4 is linked to metastatic malignant neoplasm in the lymph nodes.