The present study investigated the contribution of significant aberrant methylation profile of twelve cancer related genes from the aforementioned studies (APC, BIN, BMP6, BRCA1, CST6, ESR-b, GSTP1, P14, P16, P21, PTEN and TIMP3) in matched axillary lymph node metastasis in comparison to the primary tumor tissue and the adjacent normal tissue from the same breast cancer patients to identify the potential of aberrant methylation profile of the candidate genes as metastatic signature. This evidence concerns the gene TIMP3 and cancer.