Problem statement: Hepatocellular carcinoma will emerge as a major form of malignancy in the coming ‎decades. The continuing high incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma, suggests that this disease will ‎continue to represent a global health problem far into the future. Different genes encode for the various ‎components of the human telomerase complex. These components include the human Telomerase ‎RNA Component (hTERC) and the Telomerase Catalytic Subunit (hTERT). Correlation between ‎Telomerase Reverse Transcriptase (hTERT) expression and telomerase activity has been reported in ‎cancer patients. This work aimed to clarify the significance of human Telomerase Reverse Transcriptase ‎‎(hTERT mRNA) as a potential molecular tumor marker for Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC). Approach: ‎The current study included 25 patients of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), 30 patients with liver ‎cirrhosis and 25 age and sex matched individuals with normal laboratory and Image findings as a control ‎group. hTERT mRNA was measured in plasma by Real time PCR in all patients samples in comparison ‎with normal healthy controls. Results: The expression of hTERT mRNA by relative unit was ‎‎129.10±27.6 with range (67.72-69.6) Vs 5245.87±2382.48 (2053-12232.90) Vs 92782.76±16158 ‎‎(61783.25-118596.47) for control Vs cirrhosis Vs HCC group respectively. The hTERT expression was ‎significantly with 699 and 33 fold increase in HCC and cirrhosis groups correspondingly when compared ‎to that of controls p<0.05. Conclusion: It was suggested that this procedure was highly discriminating ‎between healthy subjects and cancer patients and strongly support the idea that a valuable diagnostic ‎test for cancer might be developed using this genetic marker in plasma. However it needs to be ‎combined with other markers in future studies to be more specific for liver cancer. ‎