SOX9 and neoplasm: Furthermore, statistical analyses showed that SOX9 expression was positively correlated with tumor clinical stage (P < 0.001), T classification (P = 0.001), N classification (P < 0.001), M classification (P = 0.006), and pathological differentiation (P = 0.017) (Figure 2A and 2B; Table 1 and Supplementary Table 2).