First author Dr Ken SUNG Wing Kin, Senior Group Leader of Computational and Systems Biology at the GIS, said: "Very importantly, we showed that HBV integration affects the patient's overall survival. This work improves our understanding of HBV integration in HCC, which may lead us to develop better therapies for this highly malignant disease."

"A lot of researchers have tried to study the importance of HBV integration sites, but with limited success," said Prof Stephen TSUI, Professor at the School of Biomedical Sciences, and Director at the Centre for Microbial Genomics and Proteomics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. "Thanks to the recent advance in sequencing technology and the continuing efforts of the team, I am so excited to see the light from the end of the tunnel finally. The findings in this article have important implications on the relationship between hepatitis B virus and hepatocellular carcinoma."