About the Authors

Stephanie J. Gros

sgros@uke.de

Affiliation Department of General, Visceral, and Thoracic Surgery, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany

Nina Kurschat

Affiliation Department of General, Visceral, and Thoracic Surgery, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany

Astrid Drenckhan

Affiliation Department of General, Visceral, and Thoracic Surgery, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany

Thorsten Dohrmann

Affiliation Department of General, Visceral, and Thoracic Surgery, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany

Evelyn Forberich

Affiliation Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany

Katharina Effenberger

Affiliations Department of General, Visceral, and Thoracic Surgery, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany, Department of Tumor Biology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany

Uta Reichelt

Affiliation Department of Pathology, Charite, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Berlin, Germany

Robert M. Hoffman

Affiliations AntiCancer, Inc., San Diego, California, United States of America, Department of Surgery, University of California San Diego, San Diego, California, United States of America

Klaus Pantel

Affiliation Department of Tumor Biology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany

Jussuf T. Kaifi

Affiliation Department of General, Visceral, and Thoracic Surgery, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany

Jakob R. Izbicki

Affiliation Department of General, Visceral, and Thoracic Surgery, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany

Competing Interests

The authors have the following interest: Robert M. Hoffman is associated with AntiCancer, Inc. Dr. Pantel is an Honoraria with Roche and an Expert Witness with Genentech. There are no patents, products in development or marketed products to declare. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials, as detailed online in the guide for authors.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: SJG JTK. Performed the experiments: SJG NK AD TD EF KE. Analyzed the data: SJG NK AD TD EF UR KE. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: EF KE KP. Wrote the paper: SJG JRI. Contributed critical revisions and suggestions of experimental outline and manuscript: RMH JTK KP JRI.