BACKGROUND:Early recurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is associated with worse prognosis after liver resection. This study aimed to investigate the prognostic value of com-mon liver enzyme markers in HCC early recurrence after cu-rative hepatectomy and to establish a simple predictive model for HCC early recurrence. METHODS:A total of 200 patients who had undergone curative resection for HCC were retrospectively analyzed. The patients were divided into early recurrence (within 2 years) and non-early recurrence groups. Demographical characteristics, preopera-tive liver function parameters, surgical factors and tumor related factors of the patients were assessed by univariate analysis to identify potential signiifcant predictors for early recurrence after resection of HCC. Parameters with statisti-cal signiifcance were entered into a Cox proportional hazard model to ifnd independent risk factors. Receiver operating characteristic analysis was done to determine optimal cut-off values and the number of combined factors in multi-factor predictive model. RESULTS:Of 13 potential risk factors for early recurrence identiifed by univariate analysis, high lactate dehydrogenase (LDH>206 U/L, HR=1.711,P=0.006), high aspartate amino-transferase (AST)/alanine aminotransferase (ALT) ratio (AST/ALT>0.96, HR=1.769,P=0.006), elevated alpha-fetoprotein(AFP>8.6 ng/mL, HR=2.079,P=0.007), small resection margin (≤1 cm, HR=2.354,P