**4. Stadialization**

HCC staging is mandatory to select the appropriate primary and adjuvant therapy and to evaluate the prognosis. There are eight different staging systems available for the management of HCC but none of them are universally accepted. The currently available staging systems for HCC include: pathologic tumor-node-metastasis (pTNM) [36], Okuda [37], Cancer of the Liver Italian Program (CLIP) [38] and Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer (BCLC) [39].

BCLC staging system seems to be the best for selection of early-stage HCC that should benefit from orthotopic liver transplantation, hepatic resection or local ablation while the CLIP score may be more useful at stratifying patients who are not candidates for resection or transplantation.
