CHI3L1 and lung cancer: The first report on the prognostic value in solid tumors was a study of 41 patients with recurrent breast cancer by Johansen [9], which was followed by a series of studies that evaluated the prognostic value of serum/plasma YKL-40 in solid tumors, such as gastrointestinal tumors, ovarian cancer, melanoma, lung cancer, urologic neoplasms, glioblastoma, breast cancer, squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck and so on.