TNF and breast cancer: BC patients showed higher levels of serum IL-1 (97.67 ± 18.36 pg/mL; p<0.05), IL-6 (33.42 ± 6.42 pg/mL; p<0.001) and TNF-α (102.15 ± 21.51 pg/mL; p<0.01) as compared to healthy controls (62.90 ± 13.33 pg/mL, 8.92 ± 1.58 pg/mL, and 39.91 ± 8.13 pg/mL, respectively) (Table 2).