IL6 and neoplasm: Representative images of tissue from cohort 1 probed for IL6 and housekeeping gene PPIB are shown in Figure 3B. IL6 was detected at higher levels in the tumour-associated stroma versus the tumour epithelial regions (p < 0.00001) (Figure 3C), and this could be validated through analysis of an independent RNASeq-based CRC dataset GSE35602 using confoundR (https://confoundr.qub.ac.uk/ accessed on 17 September 2024) (p < 0.001) (Figure 3D).