Our immunohistochemical evaluation of primary ESCC showed no significant correlation between p-AKT nuclear expression and pathological stage, which was consistent with what was described in two recent studies [35, 36] reporting that low p-AKT alone or concurrent high EGFR and low p-AKT expression is associated with better outcome in esophageal cancer patients who received chemotherapy, but p-AKT alone may not be an ideal predictor of survival for patients without chemotherapy. Here, AKT1 is linked to esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.