SPINK1 and hepatocellular carcinoma: Tumor tissue staining for SPINK1 has been associated with poorer survival in non-serous ovarian cancers (Mehner et al., 2015) and in estrogen receptor- positive breast cancer (Soon et al., 2011), and there is potential for SPINK1 to serve as a diagnostic marker for hepatocellular carcinoma (Marshall et al., 2013).