Serum thioredoxin is a diagnostic marker for hepatocellular carcinoma

Abstract

Here we found that serum levels of thioredoxin were increased in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The optimum diagnostic cutoff for thioredoxin was 20.5 ng/mL (area under curve [AUC] 0.946 [95% CI 0.923-0.969] in the training cohort; 0.941 [0.918-0.963] in the validation cohort). High serum concentrations of thioredoxin differentiated HCC from chronic liver diseases and cirrhosis (0.901 [0.875-0.923] in the training cohort; 0.906 [0.870-0.925] in the validation cohort). Furthermore, a higher proportion of patients with very early HCC had positive results for thioredoxin than for alpha-Fetoprotein (AFP) (73.7% VS.31.6%; P < 0.0001). Among AFP-negative patients with very early HCC, 18 (69.2%) of 26 had positive thioredoxin results. Our results indicate that serum thioredoxin complements measurement of AFP in the diagnosis of HCC, especially in very early disease. Combined model (thioredoxin and AFP) showed a significantly greater discriminatory ability as compared with those markers alone.