A possible shortcoming of our study was that the levels of sTLR4 or HMGB1 may be affected by many factors, such as infection, certain medicines, or even obesity [32]; hence, large variations in serum levels of sTLR4 and HMGB1 were found between NSCLC patients even within the same stages. Here, HMGB1 is linked to non-small cell lung carcinoma.