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. 1997;75(10):1460–1466. doi: 10.1038/bjc.1997.250

Clinical evaluation of urinary transforming growth factor-beta1 and serum alpha-fetoprotein as tumour markers of hepatocellular carcinoma.

J F Tsai 1, J E Jeng 1, L Y Chuang 1, M L Yang 1, M S Ho 1, W Y Chang 1, M Y Hsieh 1, Z Y Lin 1, J H Tsai 1
PMCID: PMC2223488  PMID: 9166938

Abstract

To evaluate the diagnostic application of urinary transforming growth factor-beta1 (TGF-beta1) and serum alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) levels in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), TGF-beta1 and AFP were determined in 94 patients with cirrhotic HCC and in 94 sex- and age-matched patients with cirrhosis alone. TGF-beta1 and AFP levels in HCC were higher than in cirrhosis alone (P = 0.0001). There is an inverse correlation between TGF-beta1 and log AFP (r = -0.292, P = 0.004). Multivariate analysis indicated that TGF-beta1 and AFP were closely associated, in a dose-related fashion, with the development of HCC. Receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to determine the optimal cut-off values of TGF-beta1 (50 microg g(-1) creatinine) and AFP (100 ng ml(-1)). Both TGF-beta1 and AFP showed a high specificity (99%) and positive likelihood ratio. The sensitivity was 53.1% for TGF-beta1 and 55.3% for AFP. The determination of both markers in parallel significantly increased the diagnostic accuracy (90.1%) and sensitivity (84%), with a high specificity (98%) and positive likelihood ratio (40.0). In conclusion, TGF-beta1 and AFP are independent tumour markers of HCC and may be used as complementary tumour markers to discriminate HCC from cirrhosis.

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Selected References

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