In support of field cancerization, MIC-1 expression in tumor adjacent tissues was similarly and significantly elevated (19.2x to 38.4x by WSA and 7.4x to 20.5x by ROI) compared to disease-free tissues (p<0.05 to p<0.0001), and MIC-1 expression was similar (0.3x to 1.1x by WSA and 0.5x to 1.0x by ROI) in tumor and tumor adjacent tissues (p>0.05 for most of the analyses) (Table 2). Here, GDF15 is linked to neoplasm.