Table 6. Discriminative carnitines between HCC and comparison groups.

			HCC: Healthy		HCC: Cirrhosis
Compound	HMDB ID	Association	Serum	Urine	Serum	Urine
Carnitine	00062	Energy metabolism	↑ (Yin et al, 2009; Chen et al, 2011b) ↓ (Zhou et al, 2012b; Huang et al, 2013)	↑ (Chen et al, 2009; Shariff et al, 2010, 2011)		↑ (Shariff et al, 2010, 2011)
Acetylcarnitine	00201	Energy metabolism	↑ (Yin et al, 2009) ↓ (Zhou et al, 2012b)
Acylcarnitine C3 : 0	00824	Energy metabolism	↓ (Zhou et al, 2012b; Huang et al, 2013)
Acylcarnitine C8 : 0	00791	Energy metabolism	↓ (Zhou et al, 2012b; Chen et al, 2013a)
Acylcarnitine C8 : 1	00791	Energy metabolism	↓ (Zhou et al, 2012b; Chen et al, 2013a)
Acylcarnitine C10 : 0	00651	Energy metabolism	↓ (Zhou et al, 2012b; Chen et al, 2013a)
Acylcarnitine C10 : 1	13205	Energy metabolism	↓ (Zhou et al, 2012b; Chen et al, 2013a)
Acylcarnitine C18 : 1	13338	Energy metabolism	↑ (Zhou et al, 2012a, 2012b; Chen et al, 2013a)		↓ (Xiao et al, 2012) ↑ (Zhou et al, 2012a)
Acylcarnitine C18 : 2	13212	Energy metabolism	↑ (Zhou et al, 2012a, 2012b; Chen et al, 2013a)		↓ (Xiao et al, 2012; Zhou et al, 2012a)

Abbreviation: HBV=hepatitis B virus; HCC=hepatocellular carcinoma; HMDB=The Human Metabolome Database.

↓ indicates decrease in HCC; ↑ indicates increase in HCC; † indicates control group of the study (Huang et al, 2013) comprised chronic HBV carriers.