The results above were compared to the study by Fu et al.24, who applied an antibody array assay to analyze the supernatant of the non-contact co-culture system with macrophages and HCC cells, and only five cytokines were found to be commonly elevated (IL-8, IL-1ß, IL-6, TNF-α, and CXCL-1). This evidence concerns the gene TNF and hepatocellular carcinoma.