Our results also showed that AFP, as the most frequently used biomarker for HCC diagnosis, exhibited an unsatisfactory diagnostic performance on account of a low SEN of merely 0.478, which was relatively lower than the result of Farinati et al (the SEN was 0.540).68 Thus, quantitative or qualitative analysis of ctDNA was more sensitive and feasible, and the diagnostic accuracy of ctDNA was superior to the AFP assay alone (the AUC was merely 0.638). This evidence concerns the gene AFP and hepatocellular carcinoma.