RFA-induced microvascular and tissue injury promotes angiogenesis to relieve ischaemia in local areas23, and this VEGF-induced angiogenesis may act synergistically with VEGF-induced tumour stemness to accelerate HCC recurrence, as shown by our results that VEGF signalling enhances the tumourigenicity of CD133+ CSCs isolated from patients with an increased risk for early recurrence. Here, VEGFA is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.