Objective To examine the expression of scinderin in primary hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and its paired portal vein tumor thrombus (PVTT) tissues; and to explore its role in the development of HCC and its relationship with prognosis of HCC.Methods Immunohistochemistry was used to detect the expressions of scinderin in tumor-adjacent normal liver tissues,HCC tissues and PVTT tissues from 33 patients.Results The positive expression rates of scinderin in tumor-adjacent normal tissues,HCC tissues and PVTT tissues were 69.7％ (23/33),45.5％ (15/33) and 24.2％ (8/33) respectively.A significantly lower scinderin expression was found in HCC tissues when compared with tumor-adjacent normal tissues (P ＜ 0.05).Also,the expression of scinderin in PVTT tissues was significantly lower than in HCC tissues (P ＜ 0.05).The expression of scinderin in HCC tissues significantly correlated with tumor size,absence of tumor capsule and serum AFP (P ＜0.05).The recurrence-free survival (RFS) and overall survival (OS) of Scinderin-positive patients were significantly longer than Scinderin-negative patients (P ＜ 0.05).Multivariate analysis revealed scinderin expression level to be an independent risk factor affecting RFS and OS after curative resection.Conclusions Scinderin was down-regulated in HCC tissues and PVTT tissues when compared with its paired tumor-adjacent normal liver tissues.The expression level of scinderin correlated with HCC recurrence and prognosis.Scinderin can be used as an indicator of prognosis of HCC patients with PVTT.