RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Diagnostic value of 5 serum biomarkers for hepatocellular carcinoma with different epidemiological backgrounds: A large-scale, retrospective study JF Cancer Biology and Medicine JO Cancer Biol Med FD China Anti-Cancer Association SP 256 OP 270 DO 10.20892/j.issn.2095-3941.2020.0207 VO 18 IS 1 A1 Liu, Dongming A1 Luo, Yi A1 Chen, Lu A1 Chen, Liwei A1 Zuo, Duo A1 Li, Yueguo A1 Zhang, Xiaofang A1 Wu, Jing A1 Xi, Qing A1 Li, Guangtao A1 Qi, Lisha A1 Yue, Xiaofen A1 Zhang, Xiehua A1 Sun, Zhuoyu A1 Zhang, Ning A1 Song, Tianqiang A1 Lu, Wei A1 Guo, Hua YR 2021 UL http://www.cancerbiomed.org/content/18/1/256.abstract AB Objective: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a lethal global disease that requires an accurate diagnosis. We assessed the potential of 5 serum biomarkers (AFP, AFU, GGT-II, GPC3, and HGF) in the diagnosis of HCC.Methods: In this retrospective study, we measured the serum levels of each biomarker using ELISAs in 921 participants, including 298 patients with HCC, 154 patients with chronic hepatitis (CH), 122 patients with liver cirrhosis (LC), and 347 healthy controls from 3 hospitals. Patients negative for hepatitis B surface antigen and hepatitis C antibody (called “NBNC-HCC”) and patients positive for the above indices (called “HBV-HCC and HCV-HCC”) were enrolled. The selected diagnostic model was constructed using a training cohort (n = 468), and a validation cohort (n = 453) was used to validate our results. Receiver operating characteristic analysis was used to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy.Results: The α-L-fucosidase (AFU)/α-fetoprotein (AFP) combination was best able to distinguish NBNC-HCC [area under the curve: 0.986 (95% confidence interval: 0.958–0.997), sensitivity: 92.6%, specificity: 98.9%] from healthy controls in the test cohort. For screening populations at risk of developing HCC (CH and LC), the AFP/AFU combination improved the diagnostic specificity for early-stage HCC [area under the curve: 0.776 (0.712–0.831), sensitivity: 52.5%, specificity: 91.6% in the test group]. In all-stage HBV-HCC and HCV-HCC, AFU was also the best candidate biomarker combined with AFP [area under the curve: 0.835 (0.784–0.877), sensitivity 69.1%, specificity: 87.4% in the test group]. All results were verified in the validation group.Conclusions: The AFP/AFU combination could be used to identify NBNC-HCC from healthy controls and hepatitis-related HCC from at-risk patients.