The correlation analysis demonstrated that the concentrations of TNF‐α (r = 0.559, P = .005) and IL‐6 (r = 0.643, P = .001) were positively associated with bioluminescence intensity in the mice in the liver injury groups (G1, G2 and G3) (Figure 3B), which implied that the hepatic inflammatory cytokines up‐regulated by liver injury accelerated HCC progression in vivo. Here, TNF is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.