Consistent with the above results, a Kaplan-Meier analysis also showed a positive correlation between tumour-associated HOXD3 expression and poor overall survival (P = 0.01, Fig. 4d) or overall survival (P = 0.01, Fig. 4e) and disease-free survival (P = 0.014, Fig. 4f) in CRC patients in the TCGA cohort. Here, HOXD3 is linked to colorectal carcinoma.