AFP and fibrosis: To validate our cohort sera samples using protein markers previously identified, we next evaluated a well-known marker for liver disease, AFP-L3 [4] and, as such, we observed increased AFP-L3 in fibrosis (2.8-fold), cirrhosis (2.6-fold), and HCC (12.6-fold) patients compared with normal (Figure 1C, p values of 0.0041, 0.0083, and <0.0001, respectively).