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Article History

Received: 8 September 2025

Revised: 4 August 2026

Accepted: 4 August 2026

First Online: 11 September 2026

Declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate: All animal experiments were reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of Hong Kong Baptist University (REC/23–24/0032), and were conducted in compliance with the World Medical Association (WMA) Statement on animal use in biomedical research. All human samples were collected from patients with informed consent, and all related procedures were approved by the internal review and ethics boards of The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine (K2025-083). All procedures involving human participants were performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and relevant ethical guidelines. Human HCC paraffin-embedded tissue and serum samples were anonymized and coded to protect patient confidentiality, in compliance with local ethical standards and regulatory requirements.

Consent for publication: Informed consent was obtained from all participants included in the study. No identifiable personal information is included, and all data have been anonymized to ensure confidentiality.

Competing interests: All authors declared that there are no conflicts of interest.