CASP3 and neoplasm: The constitutive and abnormal activation of STAT3 can upregulate or downregulate many target tumor-related genes, such as BCL-2, c-myc, cyclinD1, survivin, cleaved caspase-3, HIF-1 and VEGF, which then enable various processes key to malignant progression, such as cell proliferation, tumor initiation, migration, invasion, angiogenesis, metastasis, cell cycle dysregulation, induction of the epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT), and inhibition of apoptosis, as well as promote multidrug resistance to chemotherapy [19].