STAT3 and cancer: Among them, CAFs can promote tumor proliferation, migration and drug resistance by activating PI3K/AKT, STAT3 and other pathways through secreting CXCL12, IL-6, etc., and form a pro-cancer positive feedback loop with immunosuppressive cells such as MDSC and TAM (Wei et al., 2015; Guo et al., 2023; Tajaldini et al., 2022).