An influence of Sdc-1 on apoptosis was shown before for various cancer cells and revealed a Janus-faced attitude, since in some cancer types, e.g. cervical and endometrial, a low Sdc-1 expression was correlated with high viability and low apoptosis [29,30] whereas in other cancer types, e.g. breast and ovarian, the contrary was observed [31,32]. This evidence concerns the gene SDC1 and cancer.