Recently, MDSCs have been shown to promote the stemness of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) cells through neural precursor cell expressed, developmentally downregulated 9 (NEDD9) that is required to maintain the stem-like phenotype via the Notch pathway, and in turn, NEDD9 regulates CXCL8 through the ERK pathway to recruit MDSCs into the tumor (66). Here, CXCL8 is linked to esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.