AFP and hepatocellular carcinoma: In Figure 4B, the relationship between baseline VEGF and mortality risk of HCC after adjustment for confounders including treatment modality, number of tumors, PVTT, EHS, AFP, total bilirubin, ALP, and NLR was revealed; the threshold effect of VEGF on OS was still obvious (p for nonlinearity = 0.030), the HR before and after the turning point (189.79 pg/mL) was 1.008 (95% CI = 1.002–1.014, p = 0.009) and 1.000 (95% CI = 0.998–1.002, p = 0.862), respectively.