Staining-intensity analysis demonstrated that percentage of HCC samples falling into grades − ∼ + was significantly lower in tumor tissues (15.33% & 50.50%) than in peritumor tissues (26.13% & 60.30%), whereas percentage of samples falling into grades ++ ∼ +++ was significantly higher in tumor tissues (16.33% &17.84%) than in peritumor tissues (11.56% &2.01%) (p<0.001; Figure 1A), which means a higher level of activated RANKL-RANK signaling pathway in tumor tissues than that in peritumor tissues. Here, TNFSF11 is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.