CALCA and metastatic malignant neoplasm in the lymph nodes: The variable lymph node metastasis was left out of the Cox regression analysis since this is also taken into account by the TNM-stage; disease status was left out since this is predominantly base on postoperative CEA/calcitonin measurements which are of value to evaluate over time to show tumor progression, but not as a single postoperative measurement, Glut-1 was left out as a down-stream effector of HIF-1α; necrosis was left out since only 9 patients showed necrosis, and with a prevalence of only 8.1% it is not suitable as a prognostic factor.