RESEARCH COMMUNICATION Distinctions Between Clinicopathological Factors and Prognosis of Alpha-fetoprotein Negative and Positive Hepatocelluar Carcinoma Patients

From a global cancer statistics in 2011, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in men is the fifth most frequently diagnosed cancer and the second most frequent cause of cancer mortality all over the world. In women, it is the seventh most commonly diagnosed cancer and the sixth important cause of cancer death. More than half of these cases and deaths were estimated to occur in China (Jemal et al., 2011). In 1963, alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) was first found in the serum of mice suffering from liver cancer; Soon afterwards it was detected in the serum of hepatocellular carcinoma patients in 1964 (Alpert et al., 1968; Abelev et al., 1971). From then on, AFP, as a generally accepted tumor marker, especially used for diagnosis of HCC, was gradually concerned by us. In previous studies, large amounts of alpha-fetoprotein were found in fetal liver and developing yolk sac; In addition to, there were smaller amounts of alpha-fetoprotein observed in almost the entire gastrointestinal tract of human conceptus (Gitlin et al., 1972). So human alpha-fetoprotein is the normal product