In agreement, our results detected significantly higher expression of p-EGFR in 20/35 cases of lung cancer (as compared to matched, adjacent, normal tissue); and also demonstrated a positive correlation between HB-EGF and p-EGFR, suggesting HB-EGF may be the main trigger for EGFR phosphorylation in lung cancer. The gene discussed is HBEGF; the disease is lung cancer.