In addition, we observed that the co-expression of progranulin and sortilin has a significantly worse BCSS compared to patients in the mixed group also in the ERα positive breast cancer patients treated with tamoxifen (p=0.034 n=126), representing the treatment status of today’s ERα positive breast cancer patients (see Additional file 5: Fig. S4). This evidence concerns the gene ESR1 and breast carcinoma.