Abstract：Objective：To explore the clinical significance of genetic polymorphisms of tumor necrosis factor related apoptosis inducing ligand(TRAIL) and the solute TRAIL(sTRAIL) in serum of hepatocellular carcinoma patients. 〖WTHZ〗Methods〖WTBZ〗〓In total, 173 cases with hepatocellular cancer and 170 healthy controls were selected and the genomic DNAs were extracted from peripheral blood. The polymorphisms of TRAIL gene in the 3′-UTR of exon 5 at the positions of 1289C/T, 1525G/A, 1588G/A and 1595C/T were detected by sequencing analysis and polymerase chain reaction restriction fragment length polymorphism(PCR-RFLP) method. The serum levels of sTRAIL were determined by ELISA. The levels of serum alpha fetoprotein(AFP) in serum were measured by electrochemical luminescence and alpha L-fucosidase(AFU) were determined by biochemical quantitative method. Results：Significant differences were found in the distribution of 1289C/T, 1588G/A, 1595C/T genotype between hepatocellular carcinoma group and control group. The frequencies of 1289C, 1525G, 1588G, 1595C alleles in hepatocellular carcinoma group were significantly higher than those in controls(P＜0.05). The levels of serum sTRAIL in hepatocellular carcinoma group(78.8±49.2) pg/mL were significantly lower than those in controls(106.2±64.4）pg/mL(P＜0.05). According to TNM staging of hepatocellular carcinoma group, the levels of serum sTRAIL in phase Ⅰ and Ⅱ were significantly higher than those in phase Ⅲ and Ⅳ(P＜0.05). In hepatocellular carcinoma group, no statistical differences of 1289C/T, 1525G/A, 1588G/A, 1595C/T genotype distributions were found in the different subgroup of either TNM staging or tumor size(P＞0.05). No significant differences of the levels of serum sTRAIL among all the TRAIL genotype groups(P＞0.05) were found. There was no correlation between the levels of sTRAIL and AFP, AFU in the serum of patients(P＞0.05). Conclusion：The genetic polymorphisms of TRAIL(1289C/T, 1525G/A, 1588G/A, 1595C/T) and the levels of serum sTRAIL may correlated with the pathogenensis of hepatocellular carcinoma, which should be further studied.