VEGFA can be used as a prognostic biomarker for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, glioblastoma and papillary thyroid carcinoma (He et al., 2020; Stuchi et al., 2020; Yang et al., 2020; Zheng and Tao, 2020). Here, VEGFA is linked to esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.