The Kaplan–Meier survival analysis showed that the high expression of HSF1 in tumor cells or the high expression of HSF1 in stromal cells was significantly correlated with poor OS (P = 0.017, P = 0.013) and DFS (P = 0.032, P = 0.012) in patients with metastatic ESCC (Fig. 7b) but not correlated with poor OS and DFS in patients with locoregional ESCC (Fig. 7a). Here, HSF1 is linked to neoplasm.