AFP and hepatocellular carcinoma: In multivariate analysis, together with clinicopathologic characteristics, pre-operative circulating Gal-9 (p = 0.022) could independently predict HCC-specific survival, while pre-operative circulating PD-L1 (p = 0.077) and AFP > 100 μgl−1 (p = 0.060) showed non-significant trends to association with HCC-specific survival.