Limiting dilution analysis of tumor transplantation assays demonstrated that ESCC cells with higher CD44 expression showed a shorter latency for visible tumor initiation after subcutaneous tumor injections into NOD/SCID mice with low doses [29], which was especially observed in EC cells with higher expression of ALDH1 and ITGA7 [44,49]. Here, CD44 is linked to esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.