The gender-age-stage-corrected prognostic effects of the 256 CD5L-AGs were showed in Additional file 1: Table S3 and 84 of them presented favorable or unfavorable prognostic effects in HCC patients in TCGA-HCC and ICGC-HCC datasets and they were CD5L-APGs. This evidence concerns the gene CD5L and hepatocellular carcinoma.