HSF4 and colorectal carcinoma: And the Kaplan–Meier survival curves showed that CTCs-positive patients with advanced CRC had a significantly unfavorable PFS (9 vs. 17 months, P = 0.0006) (Fig. 3a), and furthermore, CTM-positive patients had shorter PFS than CTCs-positive patients (6 vs. 12 months, P = 0.0052) (Fig. 3c).