Yuan JM, Wang Y, Wang R, et al. - Researchers sought to determine the link between serum IL27 concentrations and risk of developing hepatocellular carcinoma, by conducting two parallel case–control studies (each with 100 case–control pairs) in the Singapore Chinese Health Study and the Shanghai Cohort Study. For hepatocellular carcinoma, the odds ratios (OR) for the highest vs the lowest tertile of IL27 was estimated to be 46.08 [95% confidence interval (CI), 4.68–453.86] and 19.09 (95% CI, 3.81–95.57) in the Singapore Chinese Health Study and in the Shanghai Cohort Study, respectively. In both cohort studies, the corresponding ORs were estimated to be 42.47 (95% CI, 8.30–217.40) and 242.46 (95% CI, 38.42–1,529.01) in people negative for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and in those positive for HBsAg, respectively, vs the lowest tertile of interleukin-27 and negative HBsAg. Overall, findings demonstrated that IL27 concentrations in prediagnostic sera were significantly related to elevated risk of hepatocellular carcinoma development.