TERT and hepatocellular carcinoma: TERT promoter mutations are the most frequent somatic genetic alterations observed in HCC, with an overall prevalence of approximately 60%, with ranges from 30 to 40% for HBV-related HCC to 60 to 80% for HCV-related HCC (Nault et al., 2013; Totoki et al., 2014; Fujimoto et al., 2015; Schulze et al., 2015; Kawai-Kitahata et al., 2016; Yang et al., 2016a).