In order to identify key pathways involved in regulating the progression of ESCC, we determined the prognosis of genomic alterations in multiple pathways using TCGA esophageal adenocarcinoma datasets, including TGF-beta, survival and cell death, cell cycle, migration and invasion, DNA damage, NOTCH, KRAS, RTK, PI3K-AKT, ribosome, and angiogenesis. The gene discussed is AKT1; the disease is esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.