AFP and neoplasm: AFP is most commonly employed in the clinic for HCC screening and as an important predictor for patient survival after tumor resection[10-12] The diagnostic sensitivity of AFP for early HCC, however, is only 39–64% when used alone, leading to the unsatisfying reality that a large number of HCC patients without AFP elevation are missed and subsequently progress to late stage-HCC before becoming clinically symptomatic and detectable[11].