CXCL12 and neoplasm: Although FFPE samples were randomly selected from a huge cohort of consecutively included patients with different tumor localization and TNM status, statistical analysis still revealed significant correlation between CXCR4, MMP2 (r=0.2; p=0.04), TIMP1 (r=0.32; p=0.001), TIMP2 (r=0.66; p<0.0001), and CXCL12 (r=0.53; p<0.0001) (Table 4).