ACE and hepatocellular carcinoma: Among 76 early-stage HCC patients in the training set, the HepaClear panel achieved an AUC value of 0.848 and sensitivity of 68.4% (95% CI 56.7–78.6%), which were higher than those of AFP (AUC: 0.705, 34.2% sensitivity, 95% CI 23.7–46.0%) and DCP (AUC: 0.762, 64.7% sensitivity, 95% CI 54.0–75.2%) (Fig. 3B, Table 3).