CCN2 and cancer: Furthermore, increased CCN2 plasma levels have been associated with cardiac dysfunction and increased risk of cardiovascular events in patients with atherosclerotic disease (Behnes et al. 2014; Gerritsen et al. 2016; Koitabashi et al. 2008), and altered CCN2 expression has been demonstrated in more than 25 different forms of cancer, with deregulation of CCN2 expression usually correlating with worse clinical outcome (Wells et al. 2015).