AFP and hepatocellular carcinoma: At a cut-off level of 5.0 ng/dl, the diagnostic performance of AFP for differentiation between HCC cases and the two control groups showed 80% sensitivity, 90% specificity, 75% negative predictive value (NPV), 92.3% positive predictive value (PPV) and 84% efficacy, with an area under the curve (AUC) =0.822.