[12], [39] In the present study, we had planned to further discriminate patients with different prognosis using CD163, a relatively specific marker for the M2 macrophages but found that the peritumoral CD163+ cells was only associated with a poor OS in Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and its predictive value was not better than that of CD68. Therefore, CD163 is not a good biomarker to discriminate patients’ prognosis when used in immunohistochemistry studies. In other words, the CD163+ macrophages infiltration may play a limited role in the progression of HCC. Here, CD68 is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.