Schlichtemeier SM, et al. - Given that for patients who underwent liver resection for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the presence of microvascular invasion (MVI) represents a consistent adverse prognostic factor, researchers explored differentially expressed proteins between HCC and adjacent nontumour liver tissue (ANLT) using surface-enhanced laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (SELDI-TOF MS), a high throughput method of analyzing complex samples. Further, they sought for correlation of these findings with clinical outcomes. Assessment of HCC and ANLT samples from 30 patients with SELDI-TOF MS was performed identifying a panel of four proteins—m/z 5840, m/z 8921, m/z 9961, and m/z 25,872—that had an excellent discriminative capacity between HCC and ANLT. Among these, only m/z 9961 showed significant correlation with poor prognosis (presence of MVI) and survival (shorter disease-free survival). While losing CAR 3/7 may result in MVI.