Despite abundant data supporting the notion that HIF‐1α can promote every single aspect of the multistep metastatic cascade (Schito & Semenza, 2016; Schito & Rey, 2017), only a few clinical studies have addressed HIFα expression in metastatic cancers and its role in disease progression (Cao et al, 2009; van der Wal et al, 2012; Shimomura et al, 2013). Here, HIF1A is linked to metastatic malignant neoplasm.