A recent study demonstrated that the expression level of HOTAIR in the serum of ESCC patients (n = 50) was significantly higher compared to healthy controls (n = 20), with an AUC of 0.793 (95% CI 0.692 to 0.895, P < 0.01) and optimal cutoff values of 0.094 (sensitivity 56.0%, specificity 90.0%) [152]. This evidence concerns the gene HOTAIR and esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.