Abstract: Objective To detect the expression of c-Met in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma tissues(ESCC) and paired non-cancerous tissues, and to investigate the association between c-Met and clinicopathological parameters of ESCC patients. Methods Eighty seven pairs of paraffin-embedded ESCC tissues and paired non-cancerous esophageal tissues were collected from the Department of Pathology, Beijing Friendship Hospital Affiliated To Capital Medical University. Sections from each specimen were examined by a pathologist and graded histologically. Patients' clinical parameters were collected meanwhile. Immunohistochemistry(IHC) was applied to detected the the expression of c-Met in the tissues. Results c-Met positive signals showed brown-yellow granules in the membrane. The expression of c-Met in non-cancerous esophageal tissues was always negative, whereas strong positive staining of c-Met was observed in 29/87(33.3%) of ESCCs. The expression of c-Met was correlated with tumor invasion depth, lymph node metastasis, and TNM(tumor-node-metastasis) stage(P=0.017, P=0.000, P=0.000, respectively). No significant association between c-Met expression and other clinicopathological parameters(patients' gender, age, cell grading, and tumor size) was found(P>0.05). Conclusion The overexpression of c-Met was correlated with tumor invasion depth, lymph node metastasis, and TNM stage of ESCC patients. The overexpression of c-Met may be a marker for highly invasive ESCC.

Key words: esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, c-Met, hepatocyte growth factor, clinicopathology