EGFR and hepatocellular carcinoma: After a thorough analysis on the negative regulation of Cbl on EGFR and the negative correlation between peritumoral Cbl and EGFR in our study, we decided to classify all the HCC patients in cohort 1 into four subgroups according to their peritumoral Cbl and EGFR levels: subgroup I (n = 99, Cbl↑ and EGFR↓); subgroup II (n = 40, Cbl ↑ and EGFR ↑); subgroup III (n = 36, Cbl ↓and EGFR↓); subgroup IV (n = 50, Cbl↓and EGFR ↑).