摘要Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate Cathepsin-D (Cath-D) expression in different location and its relationship with prognosis in the axillary lymph nodes negative (ANN) breast cancer patients. Methods: Cath-D expression in 192 cases of breast carcinoma were examined by immunohistochemistry. Depending on different parts of expression, three evaluating methods were used, compared and analysed. Results: The positive rate of Cath-D expression in ANN breast cancer with poor prognosis group and axillary nodes positive (ANP) group were significantly higher than that in ANN breast cancer with good prognosis group (x2=23.20, P<0.01), while there was no significant difference between ANP group and ANN with poor prognosis group (x2=0.19, P>0.05). Cath-D expression in stromal cells had no statistical difference among the three groups (x2=1.56, P>0.05). When the Cath-D expression in cancer and stromal cells were counted into the positive rate, it was near the same (u1=0.47, u2=1.41, P>0.05). Conclusion: These results suggest that Cath-D expression is one of the powerful prognostic markers in ANN breast cancer. It's a reliable, practical, and convenient method to observe and evaluate Cath-D expression in cancer cells.