Lehner and co-workers (11) assessed the impact of HtrA1 mRNA expression on patient outcome in a cohort of 131 cancer patients using molecular and in vitro techniques to measure HtrA1 mRNA and HtrA1 promoter hypermethylation, the latter as an HtrA1 silencing mechanism in breast tumors. The gene discussed is HTRA1; the disease is breast neoplasm.