Of greatest interest, there was no observed change in the proportion of TAMs secreting TNF-α ex vivo between the early and intermediate time points (24.7% vs. 25.2%), but at the late stages of tumor growth, a 2.5-fold reduction in the proportion of these TAMs expressing TNF-α was observed (25.2% vs. 10.9%, P = 0.007) (Figure 5). This evidence concerns the gene TNF and neoplasm.