Our experimental results determined highly expressed miR-18a-5p and underexpressed ATM in ESCC, which was also consistent with the results of previous studies [31, 33] about that miR-18a-5p is upregulated in ESCC and ATM is downregulated in breast invasive carcinoma, further supporting our experimental results. This evidence concerns the gene ATM and esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.