Quantitation of IHC staining between NPC tumours and normal nasal epithelium revealed average intensity scores of 6.1 versus 3.6 (p-value < 0.0001) for BMP2, and 7.7 versus 4.4 (p-value < 0.001) for pSmad1. Here, BMP2 is linked to nasopharyngeal carcinoma.