AFP and liver cancer: Although AFP and CA199 are commonly used biomarkers for diagnosing liver cancer, their sensitivity and specificity are not optimal.[29] AFP lacks sufficient sensitivity for intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma, while CA199 is not specific to liver cancer, leading to a high risk of false positives.[30,31] Our study demonstrated that PTX3 is a reliable and promising biomarker for diagnosing liver cancer, with an AUC of 0.734, a sensitivity of 73.24%, and a specificity of 84.78% (Table 3 and Fig. 3).