The value of autoantibodies in the diagnosis and prognosis of liver cancer

Abstract

Liver cancer is one of the malignant tumors with the highest fatality rate in China and the 5-years survival rate is only 12.5%. Early detection to undertake early treatment can improve the survival rate of patients with liver cancer. Nowadays, the unsatisfactory performance of serum Alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) test, and the problems of insensitive to small lesions for ultrasound and exposure to nuclear radiation for CT, necessitate the urgency to explore novel diagnostic biomarkers of liver cancer. It has been demonstrated the presence of autoantibodies targeting tumor-associated antigens prior to clinic symptoms implied underlying early diagnostic value of malignancies. High specificity but low sensitivity of single autoantibodies such as the most reported anti-p53, anti-insulin like growth factor-Ⅱ mRNA binding protein, and anti-glucose regulated protein can be solved by combining different autoantibodies. However, the autoantibodies of different combinations vary in studies. Simultaneously, autoantibodies in combination with AFP facilitate further improving the detection rate of liver cancer. Nevertheless, the autoantibodies related to prognosis of liver cancer needs to be more studied in the near future.