Objective To investigate the inhibitory effect of SFAS on the growth of human hepatic carcinoma cell line SMMC-7721 in vitro and discuss its mechanism. Methods The inhibitory fraction of SMMC-7721 cells was measured by MTT assay, and both of the Annexin V and TUNEL assays were used to determine the apoptotic proportion. Results The value of the control group was (0.385?0.03), and that of the SFAS groups (250 ?g/ml, 500 ?g/ml, 1 mg/ml and 2 mg/ml) were (0.31?0.019), (0.199?0.022), (0.150?0.033) and (0.048?0.026) respectively, with significant difference statistically ( P