Elevated levels of circulating ITIH4 are associated with hepatocellular carcinoma with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease: from pig model to human study

Table 2 Clinicopathological characteristics in the SS, NASH, HCC with NAFLD, and virus-related HCC groups

	SS (n = 40)	NASH (n = 40)	HCC with NAFLD (n = 55)	Virus-related HCC (n = 35)
Gender (male)	18 (45.0%)	23 (57.5%)	43 (75.7%) * **	24 (68.6%)
Age	43 (21–67)	44 (15–76)	73 (56–90) * **	68(41–80) ***
Obesity	9 (22.5%)	26 (65.0%) *	25 (45.5%) *	10 (28.6%)
Diabetes	1 (2.5%)	5 (12.5%)	31 (56.4%) * **	7 (20.0%) ***
Hypertension	3 (7.5%)	8 (20.0%)	23 (41.8%) * **	14 (40.0%)
Child-Pugh score	5.0 (±0.1)	5.1 (±0.1) *	5.4 (±0.2) * **	5.4 (±0.2)
Fibrosis ^a (F3, 4)	0 (0%)	5 (12.5%) *	19 (35.9%) * **	25 (73.5%) ***
Stage ^b (III, IV)			22 (40.0%)	12 (34.3%)
Tumor size			5.3 (±0.5)	3.2 (±0.5) ***

Obesity was defined as a body mass index > 25
Data are expressed as n (%) or the mean ± standard deviation. Age is median (range)
* P < 0.05 compared with the SS group
** P < 0.05 compared with the NASH group
*** P < 0.05 compared with the NAFLD with HCC group
^a Liver fibrosis was classified according to the METAVIR scoring system [15]
^b Stages were categorized according to the Japanese tumor-node-metastasis staging system [16]

ISSN: 1471-2407