HGF and hepatocellular carcinoma: Interestingly, this list of genes included several canonical growth factor pathways for HCC; for example, there were significant fold increases in the expression of genes associated with the epidermal growth factor pathway (2.8 log fold change, adjusted P = 0.02), insulin-like growth factor pathway (3.2 log fold change, adjusted P = 0.03), and the c-Met/hepatocyte growth factor pathway (1.9 log fold change, adjusted P = 0.03) following RFA compared with MTPA.