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. 2020 Oct;48(10):300060520969087.
doi: 10.1177/0300060520969087.

Evaluation of serum AFP and DCP levels in the diagnosis of early-stage HBV-related HCC under different backgrounds

Ting Song  1   2 , Lili Wang  1 , Ruopei Xin  1 , Liping Zhang  1 , Yun Tian  3   4
Affiliations

Evaluation of serum AFP and DCP levels in the diagnosis of early-stage HBV-related HCC under different backgrounds

Ting Song et al. J Int Med Res. 2020 Oct.

Abstract

Objective: This study compared the diagnostic performance of alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) and des-gamma-carboxyprothrombin (DCP) in early-stage hepatitis B virus-related hepatocellular carcinoma (HBV-HCC) under different backgrounds.

Methods: Patients were enrolled and divided in four groups: chronic HBV infection (CHB), liver cirrhosis (LC), early-stage CHB-HCC, and early-stage LC-HCC. Serum AFP and DCP levels were measured. Receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve and area under the curve (AUC) analyses were applied to compare the diagnostic performance of DCP and AFP for HCC.

Results: In total, 200 patients were enrolled, including 48, 64, 33, and 55 patients with CHB, LC, CHB-HCC, and LC-HCC, respectively. ROC curve analysis revealed that the AUCs of AFP, DCP, and their combination in differentiating early-stage LC-HCC from LC were 0.776, 0.758, and 0.786, respectively. The values of these markers in discriminating early-stage CHB-HCC from CHB were 0.828, 0.731, and 0.862, respectively.

Conclusions: DCP was inferior to AFP in differentiating early-stage CHB-HCC from CHB. However, AFP and DCP displayed similar performance in distinguishing early-stage LC-HCC and LC.

Keywords: Des-gamma-carboxyprothrombin; alpha-fetoprotein; chronic hepatitis B; diagnostic performance; hepatitis B virus; hepatocellular carcinoma; liver cirrhosis.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of conflicting interest: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Serum AFP and DCP in patients with CHB, LC, and early-stage HCC. a, AFP. b, DCP. *, P < 0.05. **, P < 0.01. ns, not significant. AFP, alpha-fetoprotein; DCP, des-gamma-carboxyprothrombin; CHB, chronic hepatitis B virus infection; LC: liver cirrhosis; HCC, hepatocellular carcinoma.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis of AFP, DCP, and their combinations in diagnosing early-stage hepatitis B virus-related HCC. a, early-stage HCC vs. CHB and LC. b, early-stage LC-HCC vs. LC. c, early-stage CHB-HCC vs. CHB. AFP, alpha-fetoprotein; DCP, des-gamma-carboxyprothrombin; HCC, hepatocellular carcinoma; CHB, chronic hepatitis B virus infection; LC: liver cirrhosis.
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