High GRO-α expression in the stroma was correlated with perineural invasion (P = 0.010), T classification (P = 0.006) and TNM stage (P = 0.004, Fig. 3), and was marginally associated with distant metastasis (P = 0.056), while there was no significant correlation with sex, age, tumor location, degree of differentiation, vascular invasion, or lymphatic metastasis (Table 2). This evidence concerns the gene CXCL1 and neoplasm.