EPCAM and hepatocellular carcinoma: However, homogeneous distribution of EpCAM-expression was significantly associated with higher serum AFP-levels (p = 0.03) and the number of intrahepatic satellite HCC lesions (p = 0.006) compared with heterogeneous EpCAM expression, confirming former studies of Bae et al. and Yamashita et al. [11, 21] Of note, all E+/− and E−/− cases had similar clinical outcomes, suggesting the same biological behaviour in HCC with none or low expression pattern of CSC features.