For the discrimination between patients with LC and HCC, AFP alone yielded an AUC of 0.797 (95% CI 0.931-0.854) with 78.9% sensitivity and 65.6% specificity at the cut-off value of 4.93; zonulin alone yielded an AUC of 0.942 (95% CI 0.898-0.972) with 92.2% sensitivity and 88.9% specificity at the cut-off value of 0.102. Here, AFP is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.