Application of a plasma-based ctDNA multimodal model featuring GSTP1 and SFRP2 methylation for early-stage hepatocellular carcinoma diagnosis.
Blood markers for liver cancer DNA methylation combined with standard tests achieved 96% accuracy in detecting early disease, outperforming single-marker screening approaches.
This single-center retrospective case-control study (180 patients: HCC vs cirrhosis at a Chinese hospital, 2023-2024) used MS-qPCR-measured ctDNA GSTP1/SFRP2 methylation as independent predictors of early HCC in multivariate analysis. A multimodal model combining these methylation markers with AFP, PIVKA-II, nodule diameter, and smoking history achieved AUC 0.962/0.955 in training/validation sets with positive predictive accuracies of 0.891/0.868, outperforming single-marker approaches.
What the study was
- Study design
- retrospective_case_control
- Population
- Patients with early HCC vs liver cirrhosis at a Chinese hospital (n=180, single centre, 2023-2024)
- Sample size
- 180
- Category
- Early Detection
- Maturity
- Exploratory
- Journal
- Zhonghua Yu Fang Yi Xue Za Zhi
Why it surfaced
Single-center retrospective study demonstrating incremental value of ctDNA methylation biomarkers (GSTP1/SFRP2) added to standard markers for early HCC detection against cirrhosis background—clinically relevant given HCC's poor prognosis when detected late, though limited by design and journal tier.
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