A recent study has suggested that arecoline can reduce IL-6 and STAT3 in a human hepatoma cell line at concentrations of 0, 3, 30 and 100 μg/ml [31]: in contrast, we found that arecoline treatment at 0.025 μg/ml could upregulate IL-6 and STAT3 mRNA expression in ORL-48(T) cells. This evidence concerns the gene IL6 and hepatocellular carcinoma.