EPCAM and hepatocellular carcinoma: Guo et al. reported that CTCs, defined by the expression of EpCAM mRNA, had a sensitivity of 42.6% and an AUC of 0.70 in discriminating HCC from CLD and healthy controls, while AFP (cut-off 400 ng/mL) demonstrated a lower sensitivity (39.5%; AUC not reported); the combination of CTCs and AFP increased sensitivity to 73% and the AUC to 0.86 [202].