For example, studies have shown that the pretreatment tumor marker CEA level (Wallin et al., 2013; Das et al., 2007), HEP2, GELS, and S10A8 protein expression in serum (Wang et al., 2022), the number of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) (Matsutani et al., 2018), subsets of tumor-infiltrating and peripheral blood immune cells (Zhu et al., 2022), inflammatory cancer-associated fibroblasts (iCAFs) (Nicolas et al., 2022), and the CD44 mRNA level (Huh, Lee & Kim, 2014), can be used as biomarkers to predict treatment response in rectal cancer NAT. Here, CD44 is linked to neoplasm.