TNF and infection: To detect the presence of infection and inflammation in patients, a wide variety of potential serum markers were investigated including factors involved in infection and inflammatory responses i.e., soluble triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells (sTREM-1, a member of the immunoglobulin superfamily) [3–7], soluble hemoglobin-haptoglobin scavenger receptor (sCD163) [8–10], procalcitonin (PCT) [11], C-reactive protein (CRP) [12] as well as interleukin (IL)-6, IL-8, IL-10 and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) [13–16].