Next, a clinicopathological association analysis in the 100 HCCs found that the high-level of serum COMP was closely associated with poor clinicopathological features, including cirrhosis (P = 0.013), vascular invasion (P = 0.031), large tumor size (P = 0.020) and tumor recurrence (P = 0.043, Additional file 1: Table S1). The gene discussed is COMP; the disease is Cirrhosis.