Fig. 1

Characteristics of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients in the 2 cohorts. a Kaplan-Meier survival analysis of HCC patients in the 2 cohorts. The median survival time of HCC patients who received hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy (HAIC) and sorafenib was 12.0 months and 12.4 months, respectively. There were no significant survival differences between the two cohorts (log-rank test, P = 0.65). b Serum levels of 6 cytokines (IL-5, IL-8, CXCL9, PDGF-BB, TGF-α, and VEGF-A) were distributed similarly in the sera of HCC patients in cohorts 1 and 2