STAT3 and hepatocellular carcinoma: This work shows for the first time the effects of the combination of imatinib/sulfasalazine on p‐NFκB, BCR/ABL, p‐STAT‐3, p‐Akt, VEGF, caspase‐3 and c‐MET expression in HCC, thus confirming our aim in this study, which was to assess the potential development of imatinib and sulfasalazine as a combination treatment and to determine whether this enhancement is mediated by these signaling pathways.