ADH4 and hepatocellular carcinoma: The K-M survival curve was utilized to illustrate the disparity in prognosis between high-risk and low-risk patient groups, as depicted in Fig. 5A. Analysis of both cohorts revealed a correlation between higher risk scores and increased mortality rates among HCC patients, accompanied by downregulation of HCC prognosis protective genes (ADH4, LCAT) as shown in Fig. 5B and C. To evaluate the predictive performance of the signature, the time-dependent area under the ROC curve of the predictive model was calculated.