Evaluating the diagnostic value of serum Des-γ carboxy prothrombin in the detection of hepatocellular carcinoma

Abstract

 Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is amongst the most common cancers in the world and Vietnam. Most HCC patients are diagnosed late, so the effect of treatment is limited. Hence, early diagnosis for high-risk populations using medical imaging and serum markers is very important to control HCC. Recently, α-fetoprotein (AFP) has been popularly used as a serum marker for screening of HCC. Unfortunately, AFP is not trustworthy enough for HCC diagnosis, especially early HCC. Therefore, this study was deployed to estimate the ability of serum Des-γ carboxy prothrombin (DCP) applied in the diagnosis of HCC. DCP and AFP concentration in serum of 50 early HCC patients (stage A), 50 late HCC patients (stage B and C), 50 HBV/HCV-infected patients, and 50 healthy persons were identified. ROC curve analysis manifested that with the cut-off value at 11.93 ng/ml, DCP allowed identifying HCC cases with the sensitivity and specificity of 50 and 94%, respectively. With early HCC, the sensitivity of DCP decreased to 34%, while the specificity was unchanged. In the case of AFP, results showed that the sensitivity and specificity of this marker for HCC were 39 and 95%, with the cut-off value at 952.1 ng/ml. For early HCC, it was impossible to use AFP for diagnosis. The combination of DCP and AFP serum markers in the detection of HCC did not improve the sensitivity of the diagnosis compared to that of DCP alone. The study demonstrated that serum biomarker DCP can be used instead of AFP in the diagnosis of HCC, which improves the diagnostic sensitivity.