Several genes in the 500 kb vicinity of HOXA5 (i.e., HOXA3, HOXA9, HOXA7, HOXA1, EVX1) were also associated with high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol efflux capacity, BMI, and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (Additional file 2: Supplementary Table S9B). Here, HOXA9 is linked to pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.