Post-surgical follow-up information was collected from 87 of the original 100 HCC patients and Kaplan–Meier survival curves were constructed. The median overall survival was 14.8 months for HCC patients with elevated tumor tissue CtBP2 expression (High CtBP2 Group), whereas the median overall survival was 58.3 months for HCC patients with lower CtBP2 levels in adjacent liver tissues (Low CtBP2 Group). The three-year survival rate was 30.9% in the High CtBP2 Group compared to 70.7% in the Low CtBP2 Group. Similarly, patients in the High CtBP2 Group (23.6%) had a reduced five-year survival rate when compared to patients from the Low CtBP2 Group (41.9%). Overall survival curve comparisons indicated that the High CtBP2 Group patients had a significantly worse prognosis when compared to patients from the Low CtBP2 Group (HR = 3.071; 95% CI: 1.357, 6.951; p = 0.007; Figure 1C). Univariate analysis demonstrated that venous infiltration, higher Edmondson-Steiner classification, advanced TNM staging and higher CtBP2 expression in tumor tissues were the poor prognosis factors (Table 2). Moreover, multivariate Cox proportional-hazard regression analysis indicated that venous infiltration, advanced TNM staging and
