Using the median of telomere length in tumor tissues as the cut‐off value in the 53 cases with paired tumor and normal liver tissues, a significant difference in OS was revealed between patients with shorter and longer telomeres (median 20 versus 31 months, p = 0.039, log‐rank test; Figure 5E). However, no significant difference was seen in the 318 cases with paired tumor and blood samples (median 11 versus 11 months, p = 0.823). This subset of HCC patients received various treatments, including resection (n = 259), radiotherapy (n = 9), and ablation and embolization (n = 31) (19 patients' treatment data were unavailable) 10. Thus, it is possible that variations in treatment selection contribute to the lack of statistical significance for prognosis among the 318 patients.