BACKGROUND:Glypican-3 (GPC-3) is frequently overexpressed in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Recent studies have shown that GPC-3 is a highly efifcient diagnostic biomarker of HCC and an indicator of poor prognosis in HCC patients who have undergone hepatectomy. However, its prognostic value in pa-tients with HBV-associated HCC after liver transplantation (LT) is not clear. The present study is to evaluate the prognostic value of GPC-3 in patients with HBV-associated HCC after LT. METHODS:A cohort of 104 HCC patients with HBV-associ-ated cirrhosis who had undergone LT at our hospital between 2002 and 2011 were enrolled in this study. Samples of HCC were taken from these patients. GPC-3 protein expression was detected in parafifn-embedded specimens using immunohis-tochemistry. All related clinical data were obtained from the China Liver Transplant Registry. The relationship between GPC-3 expression and clinicopathological parameters was analyzed. Univariate and multivariate Cox-regression analyses were used to identify risk factors for poor prognosis. RESULTS:GPC-3 was expressed in samples from 74 (71.2%) of the 104 patients. GPC-3 was expressed only in HCC cells. Positive staining was correlated with tumor size (P=0.004), encapsulation (P=0.018), pathological stage (P=0.027), portal vein invasion (P=0.043), tumor differentiation (P=0.002) and the Milan criteria (P=0.016). The 5-year survival rate and dis-ease-free survival rate of patients with GPC-3-positive were lower than those (38.2% vs 75.4%,P