To determine the expression of Ref-1 in PTC, we first extracted sample data of 568 PTC patients (509 PTC samples and 59 normal samples) from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database and then conducted quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) and western blot analyses of normal and tumor fresh tissue samples from 16 PTC patients and 8 PTC patients, respectively. The gene discussed is APEX1; the disease is neoplasm.