EGF and neoplasm: Given the prognostic relevance of serum PlGF (OS + DFS) and EGF (DFS), we hypothesized that these cytokines may be produced by tumor cells and thus analyzed their prognostic role in two publically available, independent cohorts: The Affymetrix cohort with 550 CRC patients of all stages and expression data from Affymetrix microarrays24, and the TCGA cohort with 463 CRC patients of all stages and RNA expression data generated via RNAseq25.