Of the 12 genes, five genes (CD80, IL11, MMP7, MMP12, and PTGIS) have been reported to be associated with HCC's progression or significant in HCC survival prediction [37–42], indicating that our big data analysis based on ESTIMATE algorithm has prognostic values in the HCC cohort of TCGA database. The gene discussed is IL11; the disease is hepatocellular carcinoma.