A recent study explored seven TIME-related genes in HCC, and the results demonstrated that high expression levels of BIRC5, IL11, IL17D, SPP1 and FGF13 were associated with a low overall survival (OS) rate and found a strong positive correlation between infiltration of five immune cell types (macrophages, neutrophils, CD8+ T cells, B cells and dendritic cells) and the expression of these seven genes (47). Here, SPP1 is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.