MMP2 and metastatic malignant neoplasm in the lymph nodes: In several studies comparing MMP-2 expression levels in CRC and clinicopathological variables, a significance was observed regarding the strong expression of this enzyme in stages III and IV (TNM) [35, 36], tumor size and venous invasion, lymph node metastasis [35, 37], and distant metastasis [35, 36, 38].