Factors for the CATS-IF score were selected by the conventional method, including age, curative treatment, single large HCC, serum creatinine and alpha-fetoprotein levels, fibrosis-4 score, lymphocyte-tomonocyte ratio, and albumin-bilirubin grade, and both the conventional Cox-based CATS-IF score and ML-based CATS-INF score effectively stratified patients with early-stage HCC into distinct prognostic groups (29). Here, AFP is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.