CCL5 and neoplasm: Further Spearman’s correlation tests showed that high levels of CCL5 expression were positively associated with a high risk of increased tumor buds (r = 0.583, P < 0.001, Fig. 6d), deep tumor invasion (r = 0.244, P = 0.001), lymph node metastasis (r = 0.237, P = 0.001), the presence of peri-intestinal cancer nodule deposition (r = 0.198, P = 0.005), and advanced TNM stages (r = 0.256, P < 0.001) (Additional file 5: Figure S5B-E).