Importantly, after excluding bone metastatic disease the proportion of cachectic and cancer control patients among those with an elevated BTM ratio shifted to 86% vs. 14% for the CTX/Ocn ratio (p = 0.004) and 77.3% vs. 22.7% for the CTX/PINP ratio (p = 0.06). The gene discussed is BGLAP; the disease is cancer.