This result differed from the study by Qadri et al. The miR‐125b has been reported to be an inhibitor for HCC (Kim et al., 2013), while IL6/STAT3 pathway could upregulate the expression of miR‐125b in HCV infected cells (Dai et al., 2018), which means that STAT3 pathway could prevent HCV infected cells from HCC. Here, STAT3 is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.