Analysis in patients with AFP positive (> 20 ng/mL) HCC showed that PTX3 levels were also highly discriminative of HCC from chronic hepatitis [AUC (95%CI) 0.927 (0.865–0.966), sensitivity 76%, specificity 93.5%, Fig. 2D], cirrhosis [AUC (95%CI) 0.887 (0.810–0.940), sensitivity 65.3%, specificity 100%, Fig. 2E] and chronic HBV infection without HCC [AUC (95%CI) 0.912 (0.855–0.952), sensitivity 77.3%, specificity 89.7%, Fig. 2E, Table S6]. Here, AFP is linked to chronic hepatitis.