The regulation of tumor suppressor PTEN, a negative regulator for AKT-mTOR signal (Tu et al., 2020), and its effect on tumor progenitor cells may play a role in the effect of COX-2 on hepatic tumorigenesis (Rountree et al., 2009; Galicia et al., 2010; Chu et al., 2014; Guo et al., 2015; Debebe et al., 2017; Chen et al., 2021b). This evidence concerns the gene MTOR and neoplasm.