Table 1.

Clinical characteristics of study participants (n = 186)

Feature	miR-196-5p		P value
	High	Low
Age, year			0.437
≥55	59	65
<55	34	28
Gender			0.282
Male	78	83
Female	15	10
HBsAg			0.809
Positive	84	83
Negative	9	10
HBeAg			0.216
Positive	69	76
Negative	24	17
AFP, μg/L			0.028
≥20	63	76
<20	30	17
Tumor size, cm			0.037
≥5	48	62
<5	45	31
Tumor number			< 0.001
Single	86	60
Multiple	7	33
Vascular invasion			0.036
Present	49	63
Absent	44	30
Hepatitis B virus DNA,IU/mL			0.237
≥1.0°× 103	45	37
<1.0°× 103	48	56
Tumor differentiation			0.226
I–II	7	12
III–IV	86	81
TNM tumor stage			< 0.001
I–II	86	67
III–IV	7	26

The median miR-196-5p expression level served as the cut-off value to differentiate high and low-expression groups (those above and below the 50th percentile, respectively; n = 93 each). The correlation between miR-196-5p expression and patient clinical features was assessed via chi-squared tests. P < 0.05 was the significance threshold