Surveillance for hepatocellular carcinoma: development and validation of an algorithm to classify tests in administrative and laboratory data.

Background: The purpose of alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) and abdominal ultrasound (US) cannot be discerned in administrative data.

Aim: We developed an algorithm to identify AFP and US used as surveillance tests for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

Methods: We evaluated 300 AFP and 301 US tests from a VA database.