TNF and cancer: Our finding, in fact, contrasts with the results of the only four prospective studies we are aware of to have investigated TNF-α and breast cancer risk12,17,18: three found no significant association between TNF-α and breast cancer; while a fourth case-control study on postmenopausal women nested in the Malmö Diet and Cancer Cohort19 found an association between high TNF-α and reduced breast cancer risk.