MMP9 and hepatocellular carcinoma: The results demonstrated that the mRNA expression of IL-23p19 was significantly correlated with expressions of IL-17A (R = 0.36, P<0.001) and MMP9 (R = 0.411, P<0.001) (Fig. 6) the expression of IL-23p40 also significantly correlated with expression of IL-17A (R = 0.337, P<0.001) and MMP9 (R = 0.349, P<0.001) (Fig. 6) in clinical HCC samples.