In this work, Singal et al demonstrated that PNPLA3 is an independent susceptibility factor for HCC among patients with nonalcoholic steatohepatitis or alcohol-related cirrhosis33; the observation derived from the aggregation of 6 studies (including an outlier in which all subjects were HCC patients)34 seems to less precise relative to our study, where 4 additional data sets were identified25,28,29,31 and 1521 more subjects were analyzed, showing obviously higher risk under the dominant model of inheritance (1.40 vs 2.23). The gene discussed is PNPLA3; the disease is hepatocellular carcinoma.