As shown in Table 1, preoperative serum MMP-9 levels were not associated with age, sex, tumor size, differentiation, nerve invasion, portal vein invasion, hepatic artery invasion, liver invasion, incised margin, total bilirubin, preoperative biliary drainage and postoperative radiotherapy, but were associated with Bismuth-Corlette classification (χ2=9.442, p=0.002) and lymph node metastasis (χ2=9.026, p=0.003). This evidence concerns the gene MMP9 and metastatic malignant neoplasm in the lymph nodes.