TNF and cancer: In the present work, treating HCC-induced rats with safranal alleviated cancer-associated inflammation by reducing the number of both hepatic ED1- and ED2-stained microphages and restoring normal hepatic MPO levels, a marker of neutrophil infiltration (Loria et al., 2008), as well as inhibiting the TNF-mediated inflammatory pathway via reducing the content of TNF-α and the number of p-TNF-R1–positive cells.