Objective To explore the expression of galectin-3 in human gastric carcinoma tissues and to investigate its clinincal significances.Methods Immunohistochemistry method was used to detect the expression of galectin-3 in 52 pairs of specimens of gastric carcinoma tissues,33 atypical hypcrplasia of gastric tissues and 20 gastritis tissues.Expression levels of galectin-3 in different tissues were compared and analyzed.The relationship between expression levels and clinical parameters was investigated.Results The positive rates of galectin-3 were 94.2 ％ (49/52),80.0 ％ (16/20) and 33.3 ％ (11/30).The positive rates of galectin-3 were higher in gastric carcinoma than those in atypical hyperplasia and gastritis (Z =2.181,6.160,3.611,all P ＜ 0.05).The expression levels of galectin-3 in lymph node metastasis gastric carcinoma,poorly differentiated gastric carcinoma were 100 ％ (22/22),100 ％ (45/45) respectively.Galectin-3 expression in patients without lymph node metastasis,high differentiation in gastric carcinoma were 78.6 ％ (27/30),57.1％ (4/7)respectively.The expression levels of galectin-3 were correlated with metastasis and differentiation,with higher expressions in the cases with metastatic lymph nodes (Z =12.463,P ＜ 0.05) and in poor differentiation tissues (Z =3.245,P ＜ 0.05).Conclusion Galectin-3 is overexpressed in gastric carcinoma tissues,indicating that both of them may play roles in the pathogenesis of gastric carcinoma.The overexpression of galectin-3 is correlated with metastatic lymph nodes and poor differentiation,indicating that galectin-3 may be prognostic indicator of gastric carcinoma.