As a novel index readily derived from a simple low-cost routine blood test, AAPR may help identify more patients with poor prognosis than single-indicator decreased ALB or elevated ALP, suggesting that AAPR might be used as a more comprehensive indicator of poorer prognosis in HCC and offer more information for clinicians including tumour burden, inflammation status, and nutrition status11. Here, ALB is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.