ALB and hepatocellular carcinoma: After adjusting for the confounding effect of each variable identified through stepwise forward selection, other variables independently associated with the HCC occurrence were male sex (SubHR 1.94, 95%CI: 1.23–3.06), increasing age (SubHR 1.03, 95%CI: 1.01–1.05), current alcohol use (SubHR 2.3, 95%CI: 1.18–4.49), genotype HCV-3 (SubHR 2.27, 95%CI: 1.09–4.70), platelet count ≤ 120,000/μL (SubHR 1.71, 95%CI: 1.07–2.73) and albumin level ≤ 3.5 g/dL (SubHR 1.95, 95%CI: 1.23–3.09) (Table 2).