Abstract: Objective To investigate the cancerous and noncancerous expression of epithelial cell adhesion molecule（Ep-CAM） and C-Kit in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma（HCC）. Methods Cancerous and its adjacent noncancerous tissues from ninety patients with HCC were obtained after hepatectomy in our hospital between March 2015 and January 2017. Immunohistochemical staining was applied to detect the expression of Ep-CAM and C-Kit protein,and the positivities of Ep-CAM and C-Kit protein between different histological grades, with or without envelope,different lesion sizes,high and low serum alpha-fetoprotein（AFP） levels and with or without vascular infiltration were compared. Results Out of the 90 patients with HCC,the positive expression rates of Ep-CAM and C-Kit protein in cancerou tissues were 65.6% and 74.4%,significantly higher than 11.1% and 4.4% in its adjacent noncancerous tissues（P<0.05）;the positive expression rates of Ep-CAM in 50 patients with Ⅲ/Ⅳ differentiation,in 49 with serum AFP>400 ng/ml and in 28 with vascular infiltration were 76.0%,79.6% and 82.1%,significantly higher than 52.5%,48.8% and 58.1% in 40 patients with Ⅰ/Ⅱ differentiation,in 41 with serum AFP≤400 ng/ml and in 62 without vascular tumor infiltration;the positive expression rates of C-Kit in patients with Ⅲ/Ⅳ differentiation,in with serum AFP>400 ng/ml and in with vascular infiltration were 86.0%,87.8% and 89.3%,much higher than 60.0%,58.5% and 67.7% in patients withⅠ/Ⅱ differentiation,in with serum AFP≤400 ng/ml and in without vascular tumor infiltration（P<0.05）. Conclusion The positive expression rate of Ep-CAM protein and C-Kit protein in cancerous tissues of patients with HCC increase,and they are related to tumor histological grades,preoperative serum AFP levels,and to vascular tumor infiltration. The implication needs further investigations.

Key words: Hepatocellular carcinoma, C-Kit protein, Epithelial cell adhesion molecule, Immunohistochemical staining