TERT and hepatocellular carcinoma: A case–control study in Han Chinese involving 473 patients with HCC and 564 healthy volunteers, which is reported in two separate publications (Huang et al and Zhang et al51 52), also identified associations between variants in TERT and the development of HCC; carriage of rs2242652:A in TERT was associated with a reduced risk for HCC development (OR =0.70, 95% CI 0.55 to 0.90, p =0.004), as was carriage of rs10069690:T (OR =0.75, 95% CI 0.59 to 0.96, p=0.021).