In other malignancies, in particular hepatocellular carcinoma, even if only a small fraction of the hepatocellular carcinoma cells (reportedly >5%) express stemness-related markers (keratin [K]19), they tend to spread more often to the lymph nodes and behave aggressively.[25,26] The stemness-related marker, such as K19, is also a marker for the hepatic progenitor cells, which have capacity to differentiate into both hepatocytes and cholangiocytes. This evidence concerns the gene KRT19 and hepatocellular carcinoma.