[A preliminary study on serum alpha-L-fucosidase assay in the diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma].

Serum alpha-L-fucosidase (AFU) was determined in 33 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), 4 with secondary metastatic liver cancer, 61 with various liver diseases, 12 with gastrointestinal tumor and 50 healthy controls. The results showed that AFU level was significantly higher in HCC (14.48 +/- 5.77) than that in the controls (3.33 +/- 0.72) and in patient with other diseases (P less than 0.01). Serum AFU level was also increased in fulminant hepatitis (8.96 +/- 3.99), acute hepatitis (8.94 +/- 4.94) and chronic hepatitis (7.27 +/- 2.58), P less than 0.01 or 0.05. There was no significant difference in AFU level between the controls and patients with secondary metastatic liver cancer (6.25 +/- 0.84), cirrhosis (6.30 +/- 3.17), gastrointestinal tumor (4.43 +/- 1.64), liver hemangioma and liver abscess (4.86 +/- 2.22). A level exceeding 10.5u was a useful marker for the diagnosis of HCC with 78.8% sensitivity and 90.0% specificity. The diagnostic positivity was 81.8% in low AFP producing HCC, whereas 93.9% in those with elevated AFP. Our data indicate that serum AFU is a useful tumor marker for HCC, particularly in detection of AFP-low or negative HCC patients.