TNF and acute lymphoblastic leukemia: Increased serum TNF-α levels in acute leukemia cases may be due to higher blast counts according to the studies of Sanchez-Correa et al. and Potapnev et al. They discovered that TNF-α can be produced by leukemia cells, including acute myeloid leukemia (AML) [15] and acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) [16], in addition to being produced by a wide variety of immune cells.