The association of cancer and transaminases has been mainly discussed regarding liver metastasis or liver invasion. In patients with breast cancer having liver metastasis, an elevated AST level was an independent prognostic factor . AST level was associated with poor prognosis in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer . However, only a few studies have investigated the role of transaminase in malignant disease except for liver cancer and their results were inconsistent [19, 20]. Chougule et al.  reported that AST and ALT levels in patients with stage II and III head and neck cancer and those with cervical cancer were much higher than those in healthy individuals. Moreover, with continuous radiation therapy, the elevated transaminase levels normalized. Conversely, Proctor et al.  demonstrated that patients with cancer, in general, had lower AST and ALT levels. However, in our study, many patients demonstrated normal AST and ALT levels, while a small proportion of patients had high AST and ALT levels. While this study used the JSCC method to measure transaminase levels, previous studies did not describe the measurement method used. The types of cancer and their clinical stage varied among each study. The differences in measurement methods and patients’ characteristics may explain, at least in part, the discordance.