ALB and hepatocellular carcinoma: Since the genes and polypeptides for many of these mRNAs (such as ALB, DUSP, FAS, SDF2L1, STRA13, MGAT2) have been reported elsewhere in the literature to be associated with HCC [15, 20, 29, 40], it is tempting to suggest that their presence as mRNA in the circulation is related to the cancer diagnosis, despite the small numbers of samples used in this study.