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. Here, DUSP5 is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.