As the study flowchart is shown (Figure 1), a singlelocus multivariate cox proportional hazards regression analysis was first used to evaluate associations between 2,060 SNPs of NF-kB signaling pathway genes and HCC OS with adjustment for age, sex, smoking status, drinking status, AFP level, cirrhosis, embolus and BCLC stage in the discovery dataset. Here, AFP is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.