TNF and systemic lupus erythematosus: Thus, when patients were classified as users or nonusers of antimalarial drugs (Figure 1), we found that patients without antimalarial treatment had significantly higher levels of serum TNFα (median value, 61.45) than both healthy controls (19.66, p = 0.00034) and SLE patients receiving this drug (20.60, p = 0.008).