One recent meta-analysis32 investigating the association between positive MDM2 expression and clinicopathological characteristics in patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma found that high MDM2 expression was associated with early primary tumor stage and increased risk of regional, but not distant, lymph node metastasis, whereas another study33 showed that loss of MTBP (MDM2 binding protein) expression may be linked to worse survival in some patients with SCCHN32, 33. This evidence concerns the gene MTBP and esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.