Oncotarget
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Multicenter Study
Soluble Axl is an accurate biomarker of cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma development: results from a large scale multicenter analysis.
Patients with chronic liver disease (CLD) and cirrhosis are at high risk for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Current diagnostic tools for HCC detection include imaging techniques and serum biomarkers such as α-fetoprotein (AFP). Yet, these methods are limited in sensitivity and specificity to accurately detect early HCC. ⋯ Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis of sAxl displayed a strongly increased sensitivity and specificity to detect both cirrhosis (80.8%/92.0%) and HCC (83.3%/86.7%) with an area under the curve of 0.935/0.903 as compared to AFP. In conclusion, sAxl shows high diagnostic accuracy at early stage HCC as well as cirrhosis, thereby outperforming AFP. Importantly, sAxl remains normal in most common CLDs, liver adenomas and CCA.