ArticleCancers2025
Diagnostic Performance of PIVKA-II in Italian Patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma.
Article in Cancers, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 5 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- Protein Induced by Vitamin K Absence or Antagonist II in Primary Liver Cancer: Basic Research Insights and Clinical Applications.Journal of clinical and translational hepatology · 2025Review
- Utility of Alpha-Fetoprotein and Protein Induced by Vitamin K Absence or Antagonist-II Kinetics in Predicting Radiologic Response and Survival in Unresectable Hepatocellular Carcinoma Undergoing Immunotherapy.World journal of oncology · 2025Article
- Correction: Guarneri et al. Diagnostic Performance of PIVKA-II in Italian Patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma.Cancers · 2025Article
- Evaluation of PDZD11 in hepatocellular carcinoma: prognostic value and diagnostic potential in combination with AFP.Frontiers in oncology · 2025Article
- Early PIVKA-II Response Associated with Treatment Efficacy and Survival Outcomes for Patients with Advanced Hepatocellular Carcinoma Receiving Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors and Targeted Therapy.Journal of hepatocellular carcinoma · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
14 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND
aimsHepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) represents the second leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide. Six-month imaging along with alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) serum levels detection are the current gold standard to exclude HCC. Protein induced by vitamin K absence (PIVKA-II) has been proposed as a potential screening biomarker for HCC. This study was designed to evaluate the role of PIVKA-II as diagnostic HCC marker, and the correlation between PIVKA-II levels and HCC stage.
methodsPIVKA-II levels were assessed on serum samples of Italian patients. The study population included 80 patients with HCC, 111 with liver cirrhosis (LC), and 111 with chronic hepatitis C (CHC).
resultsPIVKA-II serum levels progressively increase from patients with CHC to patients with HCC. In the HCC group, PIVKA-II values are higher in the more advanced stages of the disease, assessed by the Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer (BCLC) staging system (BCLC-B vs. BCLC-A vs. BCLC-0). Youden's index analysis identified a value >37 mAU/mL as the optimal threshold for the best combination of sensitivity and specificity (80% and 76%, respectively) and, at the best cut-off of 5.2 ng/mL, AFP yielded 53% specificity and 78% sensitivity. The combination of PIVKA-II and AFP reached positive and negative predictive values of 73.9% and 94.2%, respectively.
conclusionsPIVKA-II levels are increased in the HCC patients, compared to control groups. The increase is more evident in patients with advanced HCC. The diagnostic performance of PIVKA-II seems more sensitive than AFP while the combination of PIVKA-II and AFP resulted in the best diagnostic accuracy, reaching 73.9% positive predictive value and 94.2% negative predictive value, thus improving the diagnostic capability of the single marker.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.