Prostate cancer
Several MMPs, including MMP-1, MMP-2, MMP-7, MMP-9, MMP-13, and MMP-14, are reported to be upregulated in the prostate cancer tissue or in the blood from prostate cancer patients . A high level of MMP-7 in the circulation was recently found to be an independent risk factor for prostate cancer-related death . Furthermore, patients with metastatic prostate cancer had significantly higher plasma levels of MMP-2 and MMP-9 than patients with organconfined carcinomas and healthy controls. Similarly,increased level of pro-MMP-9 was found both in serum samples as well as in tissue extracts of patients with metastatic prostate cancer compared with patients with localized disease.