Furthermore, to examine whether M-CSF and CD68+-TAMs were independent prognostic markers for subgroups in GC, we again performed univariate and multivariate Cox regression analysis, including M-CSF and CD68+-TAMs, age, gender, tumour differentiation, lymph node invasion, tumour size, the depth of tumour invasion and TNM stage to study the effects of M-CSF and CD68+-TAMs on patient survival in GC subgroups. The gene discussed is CSF1; the disease is gastric cancer.