Investigators from the University Hospital Essen, Germany, published data on the efficacy of the biomarkers AFP, AFP-L3 and DCP alone, in combination and as part of the GALAD score using a major cohort from their clinic.
Between 2007 and 2012 data including biomarker values measured by the µTASWako™ i30 automated immunoanalyzer were collected from 285 patients newly diagnosed with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and 402 control patients with chronic liver diseases. AFP, AFP-L3 and DCP showed comparable diagnostic sensitivities and specificities for the detection of HCC. The combination of all three biomarkers resulted in the highest sensitivity. GALAD showed a superior specificity. More importantly, GALAD provided the highest AUROC for the early BCLC stages 0/A subgroup which would result in outstanding diagnostic performance.
The authors concluded that the combined use of the three markers (AFP, AFP-L3 and DCP) and GALAD show superior detection in particular for the early stage BCLC or AFP-negative HCCs.
Here you can download an article about the improved detection of BCLC early stage HCC using the GALAD scoring algorithm which was written by Best J. et al. and published in the German Journal of Gastroenterology in 2016.