Whilst for the CAM-EMT pathway 14/20 tumour pairs showed alteration in status, for the RAS-RAF-MEK, PI3K-AKT-PTEN, TGFBRII/SMAD4, apoptosis and transcriptional mis-regulation pathways,15/20, 13/20, 11/20, 13/20, and 16/20 tumour pairs, respectively, showed alteration in relative expression status (see Additional file 1: Data_Biomarker Pathways). This evidence concerns the gene PTEN and neoplasm.