Interestingly, in both types of cells, the higher percentages of positive immunoreactivity were shown for TIMP-2 than for MMP-2; in cancer cells, we observed TIMP-2 immunostaining in 87.5 % cases in comparison with 23.6 % of MMP-2 positivity, whereas 75 % of inflammatory cells were TIMP-2 positive in comparison with 50 % of inflammatory cells with MMP-2 immunoreactivity. This evidence concerns the gene MMP2 and cancer.