For late-stage HCC, PTX3 levels also remained highly discriminative of HCC from chronic hepatitis [AUC (95%CI) 0.958 (0.920–0.981), sensitivity 89.7%, specificity 89.3%, Fig. 3D], cirrhosis [AUC (95%CI) 0.924 (0.867–0.962), sensitivity 84.6%, specificity 84.9%, Fig. 3E] and chronic HBV infection without HCC [AUC (95%CI) 0.945 (0.913–0.968), sensitivity 84.6%, specificity 89.9%, Fig. 3F, Table S8]. Here, PTX3 is linked to chronic hepatitis.