serum total superoxide dismutase activity as a predictive factor in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma

Objectives: this study aimed to determine the cutoff value for diagnosis and predict mortality in hepatocellular carcinoma (hcc) based on serum total superoxide dismutase (sod) activity. methods: a retrospective case-control study of the sod model was conducted using data from a single-center dataset at shandong provincial hospital affiliated with shandong first medical university, china. serum total sod activity was analyzed in hcc patients (n = 124) and control subjects (n = 117). receiver operating characteristic (roc) curves were used to determine cutoff values of serum total sod activity for hcc diagnosis. overall survival (os) was assessed using the kaplan-meier method. results: in the model groups, the cutoff level of total sod activity for hcc was 169.2 u/ml (sensitivity: 87.23%, specificity: 91.95%), while for hcc [alpha fetoprotein (afp) < 20 ng/ml], it was 173.4 u/ml (sensitivity: 86.79%, specificity: 88.51%). additionally, in the validation groups, the true positive rate, true negative rate, and accuracy rate were all above 90%. based on the cutoff value of sod, hcc patients were assigned to an h-sod and l-sod group depending on their serum total sod activity at admission before operation. the 5-year os rate of the h-sod group was 75.00%, and that of the l-sod group was 36.59% in hcc patients (p = 0.0245). with a decrease in sod activity, serum levels of zn (t= 3.890, p = 0.0003) and se (t= 7.694, p < 0.0001) were also significantly decreased and positively correlated with sod activity (both p < 0.05) in hcc patients.conclusions: low serum total sod activity may also be a risk factor for hcc. the decrease of sod activity in hcc patients was partly related to a lack of zn and se.