Shi et al. examined HO-1 expression using RT-PCR in 32 NPC patients, and the results showed that HO-1 expression was found in 19 patients (59.4%), among which nine (47.4%) showed no response to radiotherapy, while among the 13 patients with HO-1 negative expression 12 (92.3%) exhibited responsiveness to radiotherapy, suggesting that high expression of HO-1 might correlate with poor response to radiotherapy [14]. The gene discussed is HMOX1; the disease is nasopharyngeal carcinoma.