Clinical relevance of increased serum preneoplastic antigen in hepatitis C-related hepatocellular carcinoma

Table 4 Comparison of biochemical markers between preneoplastic antigen-high and preneoplastic antigen-low patients with hepatitis C virus-related hepatocellular carcinoma

	PNA-high patients (n = 23)		PNA-low patients (n = 24)
	Mean	SD	Mean	SD	P value
Albumin (g/L)	3.5	0.7	3.9	1.1	0.1348
AST (U/L)	73.2	58.6	47.0	36.1	0.0247
ALT (U/L)	58.3	61.8	31.7	18.9	0.3025
ALP (U/L)	463.4	393.2	264.2	135.9	0.0004
Bilirubin total (mg/dL)	1.4	1.4	1.0	0.7	0.6345
GTP (U/L)	183.2	278.7	31.0	12.5	< 0.0001
Type IV collagen (ng/mL)	225.2	104.3	189.4	76.3	0.2133

Hepatocellular carcinoma patients were divided into preneoplastic antigen-high and preneoplastic antigen-low groups using the median preneoplastic antigen value (8 ng/mL) as the cut-off. Results are shown as means with SD. Differences in mean values between each group were assessed with Mann–Whitney U tests. PNA: Preneoplastic antigen; AST: Aspartate aminotransferase; ALT: Alanine aminotransferase; ALP: Alkaline phosphatase; GTP: Glutamyl transpeptidase.