Importantly, some of the proteins that have been identified as being regulated by autophagy in cancer, e.g., IL-6 and 8, are secreted by a conventional protein secretion route and their secretion is closely related to their transcription, underscoring the importance of understanding the relationship of the autophagic pathway to conventional protein secretion routes as well as to the regulation of their transcription factors like NF-κB or STAT3, to establish how manipulation of autophagy during cancer therapy might affect the tumor microenvironment. Here, STAT3 is linked to cancer.