Itoh S, Yoshizumi T, Yugawa K, et al. - On patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), researchers examined the prognostic ability of programmed death ligand 1 (PD‐L1) expression and tumor-infiltrating CD8-positive T cells, as well as the connection between PD-L1 expression and vascular formation in the tumor microenvironment. Immunohistochemical staining of PD‐L1, CD8, and CD34 was performed using a database of 387 patients who underwent hepatic resection for HCC. In addition, an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for soluble PD‐L1 was undertaken. PD‐L1 expression in cancer cells correlated with a poor clinical outcome and vascular formation in HCC patients. Furthermore, the combination of PD-L1 expression with tumor-infiltrating CD8-positive T-cell status allowed patients to be further categorized based on their clinical outcome. As a result, PD‐L1 expression in cancer cells and tumor‐infiltrating CD8‐positive T‐cell status may serve as predictive tissue biomarkers.