SPP1 and hepatocellular carcinoma: Immunohistochemistry results showed that the expression level of the SPP1 gene in tissues from three independent HCC patients (patient IDs 2280, 2766, 3196) was significantly higher than that in three independent normal tissues (patient IDs 2429, 3222, 3402), confirming that SPP1 can indeed be used independently as a prognostic marker (Figure 7E).