Liquid biopsy adds orthogonal signal: methylation signatures in cfDNA have achieved promising diagnostic performance in HCC and provide a substrate for AI classifiers that may refine surveillance and early-relapse detection when interpreted alongside AFP/PIVKA-II kinetics and imaging trends (Yoshizawa et al., 2025; L et al., 2024; Sakai et al., 2024). Here, AFP is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.