“…Langers et al (Langers et al, 2012) have found that high expression of MMP-2 and MMP-9 in the mucosa of colon cancer patients is associated with a 5-year mean survival (Grigioni et al, 1994;Sier et al, 1996). In this study, we found similar results regarding MMP-2 and MMP-9 expression in EGISTs, i.e., the expression of MMP-2 and MMP-9 was associated with tumor progression, which is consistent with previous findings (Grigioni et al, 1994;Sier et al, 1996;Zeng et al, 1996;Ring et al, 1997;Yukawa et al, 2001;Zhang et al, 2003;Liu et al, 2010;Langers et al, 2012). However, our current study did not show the underlying molecular mechanisms responsible for upregulation of MMP-2 and MMP-9 in EGISTs or how MMP-2 and MMP-9 proteins promote EGIST progression.…”