Commentary
Current surveillance strategy for patients with NAFLD at risk of HCC development is unsatisfactory. G. P. Caviglia et al. (National University Health System, and Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore) aimed to investigate the diagnostic accuracy of alpha-fetoprotein (AFP), protein induced by vitamin K absence or antagonist-II (PIVKA-II), glypican-3 (GPC-3), adiponectin, leptin and interleukin-6 (IL-6), alone or in combination, for the discrimination between NAFLD patients with or without HCC.
The biomarkers were investigated in a cohort of 191 NAFLD patients. PIVKA-II showed the best performance for the detection of HCC, followed by adiponectin, AFP, GPC-3 and by IL-6, while the leptin values were not different between patients with and without HCC.
