Objective To explore stathmin (microtubule-destabilizing protein) expression and its correlation with clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC).

Methods The clinicopathological parameters of 496 ESCC patients who underwent surgical resection between January 2007 and December 2010 in Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University were collected. Stathmin protein expression was measured by immunohistochemistry (IHC), and its association with clinicopathological parameters and patients'outcome was analyzed.

Results Of the 496 ESCC patients, 266 were in stage Ⅰ-Ⅱ, and 230 in stage Ⅲ-Ⅳ. The rates of stathmin no expression, low expression and high expression were 2.4%、87.1% and 10.5%, respectively. High stathmin expression was associated with poorer tumor differentiation (P＝0.040). Survival analysis showed that there was a tendency of poorer disease free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) in ESCC patients with high stathmin expression, compared to those with low or no stathmin expression (DFS: P＝0.159, OS: P＝0.176). In Ⅰ-Ⅱ stage, high stathmin expression was significantly correlated with poorer DFS (P＝0.032) and OS (P＝0.018). However, in Ⅲ-Ⅳ stage, no survival difference was observed between high stathmin expression and low/no stathmin expression (DFS: P＝0.785, OS: P＝0.613). Moreover, the survival of stage Ⅰ-Ⅱ patients with high stathmin expression was identical to stage Ⅲ-Ⅳ patients with or without high stathmin expression.

Conclusions In stage Ⅰ-Ⅱ ESCC, high stathmin expression predicted poorer prognosis, and patients might been upstaged by high stathmin expression.