[Objective] To profile expression of S100A4 during stepwise esophageal carcinogenesis and to analyze the relationship to the series of pathological factors.[Methods] Paraffin embedded tissue array with immunohistochemistry methods were adopted to exam the expression pattern of S100A4 in 83 esophageal carcinomas(EC),38 precancerous lesions and 9 noncancerous esophageal tissues,and the correlations between S100A4 expression and EC invasiveness and metastasis were analyzed.[Results] The expression rates of S100A4 in EC,premalignant and noncancerous tissues twere,59.0% 26.3% and 22.2%,the expression rate of EC was significantly higher than those of noncancerous and precancerous(P0.05),while statistical differences was found between the noncancerous and precancerous group(P0.05).The expression rate of adenocarcinoma(80.0%) was significantly higher than that of squamous cell carcinoma(54.4%),and the rate of female(84.6%) was significantly higher than that of the male(54.3%)(P0.05).The protein expression was not statistically related to patient age and tumor differentiation and size(P0.05).The expression rate of lymph node metastatic group(70.5%) was significantly higher than that of non lymph node metastaticgroup(46.2%),(P0.05).[Conclusions] The expression of S100A4 is an important molecular event in esophageal carcinogenesis,and progression.