IL6ST and hepatocellular carcinoma: When HCC patients were stratified by ALBI grade, there were significant differences in the plasma levels of sCD40L (P = 0.01), sTNFRII (P = 0.007), and sgp130 (P = 0.007), but not ANGPTL4 (P = 0.06), sIL-6R (P = 0.60), and sEGFR (P = 0.69) amongst the grade 1, 2, and 3 cohorts (Fig. 2).