The esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) has high incidencein Shaanxi Province of China. More and more researches indicated that humanpapillomavirus type 16 (HPV16) might play an important role in carcinogenesis ofESCC but the relationship between HPV16 and CD44v6, nm23H1 has not beenelucidated. HPV16 was detected by amplifying HPV16 E6 gene through polymerasechain reaction (PCR) method and the expression of CD44v6,nm23H1in 40ESCCs and fifteen normal esophageal mucosa (NEM) from Shaanxi Province wasexamined by Streptavidin-Peroxidase (SP) method using monoclonal antibodyspecific to CD44v6 and nm23H1. The positive rates of HPV16 E6 gene, CD44v6and nm23H1 were 60% (24/40), 65% (26/40) and 45% (18/40) respectively inESCCs and 26.67% (4/15), 33.33% (5/15) and 86.67% (13/15) respectively inNEMs. There exited statistical difference for HPV16, CD44v6 and nm23H1between NEMs and ESCCs respectively (p<0.05). The relationship betweenHPV16 and the expression of CD44v6 in ESCCs was statistical significance(P=0.021), but no significant correlation was found between HPV16 and theexpression of nm23H1 (P=0.436) in ESCCs. The infection rate of HPV16 hadno statistical difference in all pathological features we observed, but the expressionrates of CD44v6 and nm23H1 had statistical correlation withinvasion (p=0.001, 0.013) and lymph nodes metastasis (p=0.014, 0.002) respectively.In different histology grade of ESSCs, the relationship between HPV16and CD44v6 was statistical significance in grade I (p=0.044) but was not ingrade II (p=0.165) and grade III (p=0.658), however as to the expressionof nm23H1 there exited no statistical significance in all histology grades of ESCC (p>0.05). The expression rates of CD44v6 and nm23H1 were statisticallydifferent between grade I and II (p=0.004, 0.016) respectively and betweengrade I and grade III (p=0.014, 0.020), but not statistically different betweengrade II and III (p=0.792, 0.943) respectively. Our data firstly suggested thatthere existed the statistical relationship between the infection of HPV16 and theexpression of CD44v6 in ESCCs and that HPV16 may be involved in invasion andmetastasis of ESCC.