In this study, we found that 23.4 % paraffin-embedded HCC cancer tissues showed strong membrane and cytoplasm staining of CTSB, 40.2 % HCC tissues showed moderate CTSB staining, and 36.4 % showed negative staining in tumor cells, while the non-cancerous tissues presented mainly negative expression of CTSB, indicating that CTSB might play an important role in the development and progression of HCC. Here, CTSB is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.