CDKN1B and hepatocellular carcinoma: Clinically, low expression of CDKN1B has been associated with advanced stage of hepatocellular carcinoma while elevated CDKN1B expression serves as a favorable prognostic marker for better HCC survival rate (Ito et al., 1999; Matsuda et al., 2013; Niu et al., 2015; Xu et al., 2015).