AKR1B10 and chronic hepatitis C virus infection: AKR1B10 cloned from PHC has a potential to become a diagnostic and prognostic biomarker for PHC, and indeed, it was confirmed to be a marker for differentiation and proliferation of PHC6, an independent risk factor for PHC in chronic hepatitis C patients22, and a potential promising biomarker to differentiate PHCs from benign hepatic lesions5.