Demographic and clinicopathologic parameters of patients from different cohorts
| Parameters | Hong Kong cohort (n=96) | Shanghai cohort (n=116) | ||
| Patients with HCC | Healthy controls | Hepatitis B carriers | Patients with HCC | |
| Sex | ||||
| Male | 78 | 22 | 20 | 49 |
| Female | 18 | 8 | 9 | 8 |
| Age (years) | ||||
| <60 | 60 | 30 | 28 | 47 |
| ≥60 | 36 | 0 | 1 | 10 |
| α-fetoprotein (ng/ml) | ||||
| <20 | 39 | – | 29 | 30 |
| 20–400 | 26 | – | 0 | 16 |
| >400 | 31 | – | 0 | 11 |
| Alanine aminotransferase (U/l) | ||||
| <35 | 28 | – | 20 | 29 |
| ≥35 | 68 | – | 9 | 28 |
| Aspartate aminotransferase (U/l)# | ||||
| <35 | 23 | – | 21 | 24 |
| ≥35 | 73 | – | 4 | 33 |
| Hepatitis B surface antigen | ||||
| Negative | 12 | – | 0 | 0 |
| Positive | 84 | – | 29 | 57 |
| Pathological tumour-node-metastasis stage* | ||||
| Early (I, II) | 41 | – | – | 45 |
| Late (III, IV) | 55 | – | – | 11 |
| Child–Pugh† | ||||
| A | 91 | – | – | 54 |
| B | 3 | – | – | 2 |
| C | 0 | – | – | 0 |
| Tumour size (cm)* | ||||
| <5 | 26 | – | – | 27 |
| ≥5 | 70 | – | – | 29 |