The AUC of AFP in diagnosing HCC ranges between 0.80 and 0.85; this can increase when AFP is combined with other markers, such as 0.9675 (AFP + chemokine 20) (Deng et al., 2024), 0.876 (AFP + osteopontin) (Zhu et al., 2020), 0.94 (AFP + aberrant sialylated N-glycans) (Zhu et al., 2024) and 0.96 (AFP + CXC chemokine receptor 2, C-C motif chemokine receptor-2 and chromatin regulators EP400)(Shi et al., 2014). Here, CXCR2 is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.