A previous study of racial disparities in AFP testing showed that blacks accounted for approximately half (43%) of the patients with HCC and a normal AFP level.11 Our findings were consistent with the results of the HALT‐C trial, which showed that elevated AFP levels were more frequent in blacks.12 The differences in the results could be due to the variations in methodology, such as patient selection (the previous studies included HCC patients with hepatitis C and both were multicenter based clinical studies), or they could represent differences among patients at different stages of HCC. Here, AFP is linked to hepatitis C virus infection.