High levels of expression of NUAK1 (ARK5) have been reported to correlate with poor prognosis in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (Liu et al, 2012a; Cui et al, 2013), glioma (Lu et al, 2013), colorectal cancer (Kusakai et al, 2004; Roh et al, 2010), multiple myeloma (Suzuki et al, 2005) and pancreatic cancer (Suzuki et al, 2004). This evidence concerns the gene NUAK1 and hepatocellular carcinoma.