Notably, we also observed that serum HMMR and THBS4 had better AUC, sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, PPV, NPV and odds ratio in patients with eHCC compared with the non-tumor, non-malignant chronic liver disease and liver cirrhosis groups, indicating these two markers are more appropriate for early diagnosis of HCC than AFP (Table 1, Supplementary Figure S6D–F). Here, AFP is linked to cirrhosis of liver.