Clinical significance of multi-tumor markets detection in the early diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma.

Objective To investigate the value of combined detection of multi-tumor markers in the diagnosis of primary hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and to establish the discriminant equation. Methods Using a protein chip, 12 tumor markers in the serum from 98 patients with HCC and 67 patients with benign liver diseasewho had been admitted to Daping Hospital from November 2003 to April 2006, and 46 healthy individuals during he same period were analyzed. A discriminant equation was established to discriminate primary HCC from benign liver diseases. All the data were processed by variance analysis and chi-square test. Results The positive rates of the tumor markers were 89% (87/98) in patients with primary HCC, 19% (13/67) in patients with benign liver disease and 4% (2/46) in healthy individuals. There was statistical difference in the serum level of alpha-fetoprotein (AFP), eareinoembryonic antigen (CEA), ferritin (FER), CA19-9 and CA125 among the 3 groups (F =59.530, 40.472, 31.708, 75. 897, 153.066, P <0.05). Combined detection of AFP, CEA, FER, CA19-9 and CA125 improved the diagnostic accordance rate to 89%, which was significandy higher than the diagnostic accordance rate (64%) when only AFP was detected (X2 = 16.362, P <0.05). The accuracy of the discriminant equation was 90%. Conclusions Combined detection of multi-tumor markers is superior to AFP detection. Combined detection of multi-tumor markers can be used in screening of the HCC patients in HCC high risk population and in the early diagnosis of primary HCC. Key words: Liver neoplasms; Tumor markers; Diagnosis