TNF and neoplasm: Tumor associated macrophages (TAM) and myeloid-derived suppressive cells (MDSC) in the HCC microenvironment release cytokines, such as IL-6 and tumor necrosis factor (TNF), thereby inducing cancer cell proliferation and inhibiting apoptosis through activation of NF-κB and Stat3 (Iliopoulos et al., 2009; Yu et al., 2009).