CCL2 and hepatocellular carcinoma: As the clustering of these factors showed a strong correlation between prolactin and AFP, the ability of discriminating HCC patients from non-HCC HBV carriers was superior when the combination of MCP-1 and AFP was used (AUC = 0.974; Figure 2A), compared to MCP-1+prolactin (AUC = 0.914; not shown).