Table 1 confirmed that the higher expression of IER3 was positively correlated with age (≥60 years old). However, the expression of IER3 was not related to other clinicopathological parameters. More importantly, according to the Kaplan–Meier curve based on IHC, the high level of IER3 was positively correlated with poor survival rate in HCC (Fig. 2A), but this result was not statistically significant (p > 0.05). Here, IER3 is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.