found that the expression of several EMT-related biomarkers, such as ZEB, Snail, Slug and Twist1, was associated with poor prognostic factors such as vascular infiltration, intrahepatic metastasis and poor OS in hepatocellular carcinoma (11) but mechanisms of MVI in HCC have not been elucidated. Here, TWIST1 is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.