Previous studies have shown that higher IL-6 and IL-8 levels are associated with increased HCC risk in patients with chronic liver disease (Wong et al. 2009; Chien et al. 2011) and correlated with advanced disease stages (Sanmamed et al. 2014; Wang et al. 2016; Sun et al. 2019) and worse liver function in patients with HCC (Chan et al. 2012; Jang et al. 2012). The gene discussed is CXCL8; the disease is hepatocellular carcinoma.