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Figure 4. Problem in histological diagnosis of early HCC with needle biopsy specimen. Histopathologically, the presence of the stromal invasion of tumor cell to the portal tract is the most reliable marker for the diagnosis of early HCC. In whole tumor excision specimen, and needle biopsy 1 specimen, pathologist can find out the stromal invasion within the specimen and diagnose the nodule as early HCC. However, in needle biopsy 2, the stromal invasion finding is not contained within the specimen and pathologist diagnose the nodule as high-grade dysplastic nodule, not early HCC. This kind of sampling error issue is possible in histopathological diagnosis of the nodule during multistep hepatocarcinigenesis. HCC: hepatocellular carcinoma