AFP and neoplasm: In addition, a clearly higher AFP-specific T cell response was found in the advanced stage (146.18 ± 58.75 SFUs/106 cells) compared with the early stage (18.88 ± 10.01 SFUs/106 cells; P = 0.035; Fig. 5D), which indicated that the AFP-specific T cell response might be a signature of tumour status in the advanced stage.