Statistical analysis of the clinicopathological features of these 70 patients as related to SUMO2 protein expression showed that elevated SUMO2 was closely associated with high mortality, lymph node metastasis and vascular invasion (i.e. higher SUMO2 protein levels in cancer tissues were positively correlated with proliferation, migration and invasion). Here, SUMO2 is linked to metastatic malignant neoplasm in the lymph nodes.