Table 1. Demographic and clinico-pathological characteristics of study subjects in the discovery and validation sets.

Variables	Discovery Set		Validation Set
	HCC Cases (n=20)	Controls (n=20)	HCC Cases (n=49)	Controls (n=49)
Age at blood collection
Mean ± SD (yrs)	59.1 ± 8.8	58.6 ± 9.0	61.1 ± 11.7	61.5 ± 11.0
< 60 yrs	11 (55)	10 (50)	24 (49)	23 (47)
≥ 60 yrs	9 (45)	10 (50)	25 (51)	26 (53)
Gender	n (%)	n (%)	n (%)	n (%)
Male	17 (85)	17 (85)	41 (84)	41 (84)
Female	3 (15)	3 (15)	8 (16)	8 (16)
Ethnicity
Caucasian	16 (80)	16 (80)	32 (65)	32 (65)
Hispanic	2 (10)	2 (10)	11 (23)	11 (22)
African-American	0	0	4 (8)	4 (8)
Asian	2 (10)	2 (10)	2 (4)	2 (4)
Viral infection status
HBV (−) and HCV (−)	5 (25)	19 (95)	11 (22)	39 (80)
HBV (+) and HCV (−)	4 (20) **	1 (5)	6 (12)	7 (14)
HBV (−) and HCV (+)	11 (55) **	0	32 (66) **	1 (2)
HBV (+) and HCV (+)	0	0	0	2 (4)
Anti-viral treatment
No	9 (45)		22 (45)
Yes	8 (40)		15 (31)
Missing	3 (15)		12 (24)
AFP (ng/mL)
<400	14 (70)		32 (65)
≥400	6 (30)		15 (31)
Missing	0		2 (4)
Cirrhosis
Presence	6 (30)		18 (37)
Absence	5 (25)		8 (16)
Missing	9 (45)		23 (47)
Within Milan
Yes	15 (75)		32 (65)
No	4 (20)		17 (35)
Missing	1 (5)		0
Child-Pugh score
A	11 (55)		34 (69)
B	9 (45)		15 (31)
Tumor stage
I-II	7 (35)		19 (39)
III-IV	13 (65)		30 (61)
Tumor size
<5 cm	5 (25)		26 (53)
≥5 cm	13 (65) *		21 (43)
Missing	2 (10)		2 (4)
Survival status
Alive	10 (50)		31 (63)
Deceased	10 (50)		17 (35)
Missing	0		1 (2)

^*p < 0.05;

^**p < 0.001;