Surgical removal of the tumor is the standard treatment procedure for most cancer types. Usually, surgery is followed by adjuvant therapy like radiation, chemotherapy, hormones, angiogenic inhibitors, or kinase inhibitors. All these treatment procedures may cause harmful side effects, and some patients may be over-treated because of failure to identify those with low risk of cancer recurrence. Other patients could benefit from more aggressive treatment. During the last decade, new biomarkers which can predict the chance of relapse have been identified and are helpful in treatment stratification.An overwhelming number of studies have addressed the potential of MMPs and their tissue inhibitors, TIMPS, as prognostic markers in different cancer types.