ACE and cancer: Furthermore, we assessed GAADPB performance for distinguishing HCC from different cancer subgroups, the results revealed that at a 90% specificity, GAADPB still had the highest sensitivity compared to the individual biomarkers for detecting HCC subgroups with very early/early stage (BCLC 0/A), small size (diameter < 3 cm), single lesion, absent PPVT, absent metastases, AFP-negative (20 ng/ml) and DCP-negative (<40 ng/ml)] (Figure 5 and Table S4).