Matrix metalloproteinases (
MMPs) play an important role in the
pathological processes of degradation of extracellular matrix and destruction of basement membrane, which leads to
tumor invasion and
metastasis. In the present study, we investigated membrane-type 2
MMP (MT2-MMP) expression pattern in
esophageal cancer tissues collected from 103 patients, and explored
MT2-MMP expression pattern in correlation to patients' clinicopathological features, intratumoral angiogenesis and postoperative prognoses. The intensity of immunochemical staining of
MT2-MMP was significantly positively correlated to the intratumoral angiogenesis of
esophageal cancer tissues. Positive
MT2-MMP immunoreactions were found in 85.4% of total
tumor sections, whereas none or very weak
MT2-MMP staining occurred in normal esophageal tissues. In addition,
MT2-MMP immunochemical intensities were significantly correlated to
tumor size, but not to patient's gender, age, invasion depth,
lymph node metastasis and distant
metastasis. Moreover,
MT2-MMP levels could not be applied for predicting patients' survival rate although the H-score cut-off value showed the overall survival rate of patients with low
MT2-MMP protein level to be better than those with high
MT2-MMP protein level.