HDGF and hepatocellular carcinoma: Inconsistent with Yoshida's report [15], our results indicated that significantly increased nuclear protein expression of HDGF closely associated with T classification (p < 0.001), N classification (p < 0.001), clinical stage (p < 0.001) in patients with HCC, which hinted that HDGF as a growth factor might play an important role in HCC genesis and progression rather than distant metastasis(p = 0.109).