With regard to cigarette smoking, significantly higher expression of IL-6 was observed in the tumour tissue of patients with a history of ≤ 40 PYs, i.e. 2.197 (IQR: 0.821–4.415) than in those with > 40 PYs, i.e. 0.461 (IQR: 0.372–0.741), (UMW test, p = 0.037). Here, IL6 is linked to neoplasm.