The potential oesophageal cancer stem cell (CSC) markers CD44 [16, 17] and ALDH [18, 19] were present in 11/17 (64.7%) and 13/17 (76.5%) of the samples respectively, and both were present in 9/17 (52.9%) of the samples (Table 2). This evidence concerns the gene CD44 and carcinoma of esophagus.