AFP and hepatocellular carcinoma: The potential markers of HCC prognosis reported in the literature are divided into the following categories: (1) single molecules as an independent prognostic indicator, such as serum alpha-fetoprotein (AFP), des-gamma-carboxy-prothrombin (DCP) or other novel markers that are currently being studied (Calderaro et al., 2017; Li et al., 2017); and (2) gene signature constructed by several to dozens of prognostic genes through analysing high-throughput gene expression profiles.