A few studies suggested that elevated SOX9 expression was associated with either tumor aggressiveness or worse patient survival: One small scale study based on gastric cancer biopsies demonstrated high SOX9 expression was associated with more advanced tumor TNM stage and lower overall survival and disease-free survival (19); Another study only found correlation of SOX9 expression with TNM and clinical stages (23); Two other cohort studies did not find any significant relationship between altered expression of SOX9 protein and clinicopathological parameters including overall survival (24,25). Here, SOX9 is linked to gastric cancer.