Des-gamma-carboxy prothrombin and alpha-fetoprotein levels as biomarkers for hepatocellular carcinoma and their correlation with radiological characteristics

Abstract

BACKGROUND Alpha-fetoprotein (AFP), a commonly used biomarker for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), is normal in up to one-third of patients. AIM To evaluate the diagnostic performance of des-gamma-carboxy-prothrombin (DCP) alone and in combination with AFP. METHODS In this study, 202 patients with radiologically proven HCC were enrolled, and their DCP and AFP levels were evaluated for their diagnostic performance. RESULTS The mean age of the enrolled patients was 58.5 years; 72.0% were male. DCP was elevated in 86.6% (n = 175) of all patients, 100.0% (n = 74) of patients with portal vein thrombus, and 87.4% (n = 111) of patients with multicentric HCC. AFP was elevated in 64.3% (n = 130) of all the patients, 74% (n = 55) of the patients with portal vein thrombus, and 71.6% (n = 91) of the patients with multicentric HCC (P = 0.030, 0.001, and 0.015, respectively). In tumors less than 2 cm in size (n = 46), DCP was increased in 32 (69.5%) patients, and AFP was increased in 25 (54.3%) patients (P = 0.801). There was good pairing between DCP and AFP for HCCs of 2 cm size or larger (P < 0.001); however, the pairing among tumors < 2 cm size was not significant (P = 0.210). In 69 of the patients (34.1%), only one of the tumor markers was positive; DCP was elevated alone in 57/202 (28.2%) of all patients, and AFP alone was elevated in 12/202 (5.9%) of the patients. The areas under receiver operating characteristic curves (AUROC) for tumors > 2 cm was 0.74 for DCP and 0.59 for AFP; combining both markers resulted in an AUROC of 0.73. For tumors < 2 cm, the AUROC was 0.25 for DCP and 0.40 for AFP. CONCLUSION DCP, as an individual marker, had a better diagnostic performance in many cases of HCC. Hence, DCP may replace AFP as the primary HCC biomarker.