Abstract: Objective: To investigate the role of urokinase-type plasminogen activator(uPA) and PAI-1 in the inva-sion and metastasis of epithelial ovarian cancer and its relationship with prognosis. Methods: SABC immunohistochemistrywas employed to detect uPA and PAI-1 protein expression in 40 samples of ovarian cancer tissue, 20 samples of benignbreast tumor and 20 samples of normal breast tissue. Results: The expression rate of uPA and PAI-1 protein in ovariancancer was 52.5% and 67.5%, respectively, significantly higher than in the benign tumors and normal tissues(P<0.05). Nosignificant difference was found in uPA and PAI-1 expression between the benign tumors and the normal tissues(P>0.05).In the ovarian cancer group, no correlation was observed between the expression of uPA and PAI-1 protein and pathologi-cal type, ascitic volume, or lymph node metastasis. The expression rate of uPA and PAI-1 protein in stage III~IV patientswas much higher than that in stage Ⅰ~Ⅱ patients. Compared to patients without omentum involvement or liver metastasis,patients with omentum involvement or liver metastasis presented with higher expression of uPA and PAI-1 proteins. Theexpression of uPA was negatively correlated with pathological grade, and the expression of PAI-1 was positively correlatedwith residual tumor volume. The median overall survival of patients with no detectable uPA expression (49.0 months) waslonger that of those with uPA expression (29.3 months), with a significant difference between the two groups(P<0.01). Themedian overall survival of patients with no detectable PAI-1 expression (52.2 months) was also longer than that of thosewith PAI-1 expression(39.8 months), with a significant difference(P<0.01). The Cox regression model for multivariate anal-ysis showed that the expression of PAI-1 protein was an independent prognostic factor for ovarian cancer. Conclusion: uPA and PAI-1 are involved in the carcinogenesis and progression of ovarian cancer, and they can be used as biomarkersfor prognosis.