Several studies showed that high Axl expression in HCC patients was positively associated with more aggressive tumor invasiveness, a high risk of tumor recurrence, lymph node metastasis, and lower survival.16, 17, 18 Our study demonstrated that Axl expression was significantly correlated with advanced clinicopathological features, including cirrhosis, microvascular invasion, macrovascular invasion, tumor size, BCLC stage, recurrence, and mortality in the univariate analysis. The gene discussed is AXL; the disease is hepatocellular carcinoma.