TFF3 and hepatocellular carcinoma: As plasma TFF3 was down-regulated in HCC patients, we used 1/TFF3 to distinguish the HCC patients and the results showed that the AUC for 1/ TFF3 was 0.763 (95% CI: 0.667–0.859; p = 0.00) and the optimal cut-off value was 35.13 ng/ml with sensitivity and specificity of 70.2 and 63.6%, respectively (Fig. 3).