SPINK1 and neoplasm: Immunohistochemistry analysis using a tissue microarray comprising a cohort of 61 paired non-tumor liver and HCC human tissue samples found proteomic level of SPINK1 to also be frequently overexpressed in HCC, with >20% of the cases scored as medium-high expression, while only 1.6% of the non-tumor liver cases scored in the same category (Fig. 3i).