The two studies on the measure of circulating CRIPTO in the plasma published so far were both conducted on a very small group of individuals: the study of Bianco and coworkers analysed 21 healthy donors, 33 patients with colon carcinoma and 75 patients with breast carcinoma or benign breast lesions while the study of Pilgaard and coworkers included 28 Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) patients, 4 low-grade glioma patients and 8 healthy controls. The gene discussed is CRIPTO; the disease is glioblastoma.