In vitro analyses using seven ovarian cell lines revealed that six of seven cell lines overexpressed IL-6R compared with a primary OSE, indicating that IL-6/IL-6R signaling exerts in a paracrine manner in certain types of ovarian cancer cells, as confirmed by the data that exogenous treatment of IL-6 induced proliferation, invasion and VEGF production of ovarian cancer cells which do not express detectable levels of IL-6. The gene discussed is IL6; the disease is ovarian carcinoma.