COL6A3 and esophageal squamous cell carcinoma: We recognize that ESCC is a multifactorial disease with various pathogenic genes, including but not limited to TP53, NOTCH1, CDKN2A, and COL6A3 (Gao et al., 2014; Li et al., 2019b; Liu et al., 2022; Ko et al., 2023).