Representative images of grade 1–3 tumor budding and the prognostic role of tumor budding in training and validation cohorts. (a–c), Representative images of grade 1–3 tumor budding. (d), Survival analysis comparing overall survival (OS) between tumor budding (TB)-grade-high and TB-grade-low groups in the training cohort. (e), Disease-free survival (DFS) analyses in the training cohort. (f), the forest map showed that TB was an adverse prognostic factor for both OS and DFS in the training cohort after adjusting confounding factors. (g–h), Survival analysis comparing OS (G) and DFS (H) between tumor TB-grade-high and TB-grade-low groups in the validation cohort. (i), the forest map showed that TB was an adverse prognostic factor for both OS and DFS in the validation cohort. AFP, alpha fetoprotein; HBV, hepatitis-B virus; ALBI, albumin-bilirubin; BCLC, Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer staging system; MVI, microvascular invasion.