AFP and hepatocellular carcinoma: For protein markers, although a combination of AFP, des-gamma-carboxyprothrombin (DCP) and lectin-bound AFP (AFP-L3) has higher sensitivity and accuracy than AFP alone [13, 14], neither DCP nor AFP-L3 can improve the performance in distinguishing HBV-associated early HCC and LC with chronic hepatitis B (CHB) [15].