Abstract:Objective To investigate the significance of angiopoietin like protein 3 (ANGPTL 3) and endothelin converting enzyme-1 (ECE-1) in patients with esophageal carcinoma (EC). Methods A total of 95 patients with EC who were admitted in our hospital for surgery from January 2011 to January 2013 were involved in this study. Carcinoma tissues and the adjacent normal tissues were collected for identification of ANGPTL3 and ECE-1 protein expressions by immunohistochemistry assay. Correlation of ANGPTL 3/ECE-1 with the clinical characteristics was analyzed. Kaplan Meier survival model and Cox regression analysis were used to analyze the effect of ANGPTL 3 and ECE-1 expression on the prognosis of EC patients. Results Positive expression rates of ANGPTL 3 and ECE-1 in the EC carcinoma tissues were significantly higher than those in the adjacent normal tissues (P?0.05). ANGPTL 3 expression was positively correlated with the tumor size and distant metastases. Moreover, there was a positive correlation between the expression of ANGPTL 3 and ECE-1 (r?=?0.610, P?=?0.000). The Log-rank results showed that the total survival rate and average survival time in patients with ANGPTL3 or ECE-1 positive expression were significantly lowered than those in patients with ANGPTL 3 negative expression (P?0.05). Cox regression showed that distant metastasis, ANGPTL 3 and ECE-1 positive expression were risk factors for survival and prognosis of patients with EC (P?0.05). Conclusions Increased expression of ANGPTL 3 and ECE-1 is associated with poor prognosis, which can potentially be used as diagnostic biomarkers.