A clinicopathological association study of the 102 patients with gastric cancer demonstrated that the expressions of SPOCK1, E‐cadherin, Slug and Vimentin significantly correlated with T stage, pTNM stage and lymph node metastasis, respectively (P < 0.05) (Table 2). The gene discussed is SNAI2; the disease is metastatic malignant neoplasm in the lymph nodes.