Objective To explore the expressions of trefoil factors (TFFs) in bladder cancers and their clinical significance.Methods Using real-time fluorescence quantitative PCR and immunohistochemical staining from January 2013 to December 2013 in our hospital underwent surgical resection in 50 cases of superficial bladder cancer (including 20 cases of primary and 30 cases of recurrent bladder cancer) expression of TFF1,TFF2 and TFF3 and 10 cases of adjacent normal tissues.There were 32 males and 18 females,aged 45-73 years,with an average of 57 years.Pathological T staging:25 cases (50％) in pTa,25 cases in pT1 phase (50％),pathological grade:low grade 24 cases (48％),26 high grade (52％).Results TFF1,TFF2,TFF3 and mRNA in primary bladder cancer tissue expression levels were 2.04 (1.86-2.22) 、0.88 (0.11-1.6) 、0.92 (0.11-1.73) the recurrence of bladder cancer tissue expression levels were 2.22 (1.94-2.22) 、2.32 (0.22-4.42) 、2.45 (0.35-4.55) while in the adjacent normal tissues were 0.60(0.52-0.68) 、0.58(0.18-0.98) 、0.56(0.16-0.96).The adjacent normal tissues of TFF1,TFF2,TFF3 mRNA was lower than that of bladder cancer (P ＜ 0.05) and the recurrent bladder cancer,the relative expression of TFF2,TFF3 of mRNA was higher than that of primary bladder cancer (P ＜ 0.05),while the recurrent bladder cancer and primary bladder carcinoma TFF1 mRNA expression showed no significant difference (P ＞ 0.05).There was no significant difference in the positive expression rate of TFF1 between high-grade and low-grade bladder cancer [71％ (17/24) vs.77％ (20/26),P =0.88].And the positive rates of TFF2 and TFF3 in high-grade bladder cancer were 83％ (20/24) and 83 ％ (20/24) respectively,which were higher than those in low-grade bladder cancer [65 ％ (17/26),77％ (20/26),all P ＜0.05].The results of follow-up showed that the median recurrence-free survival (RFS) for 50 patients was 31 (18-38) months.The median RFS of patients with strong positive TFF1 and with weak positive (25 months and 27 months) were shorter than TFF1 negative (31 months,all P ＜0.05).The median RFS of patients with strong positive TFF2 (24 months) and TFF2 negative (30 months) were shorter than those of the weakly positive patients (median 33 months,all P ＜ 0.05).The median RFS of patients with TFF3 strongly positive (24 months) and weakly positive (28 months) were shorter than that of TFF3 negative patients (31 months,all P ＜ 0.05),and TFF3 strong positive RFS was shorter than TFF3 weak positive (P ＜ 0.05).Conclusions The expression rates of TFF1,TFF2 and TFF3 in bladder cancer tissues are higher than that of normal tissue,and they are higher than that of the primary bladder cancer tissue in the recurrent bladder cancer.TFF1 and TFF2 may be involved in the recurrence and progression of bladder cancer,and the role of TFF3 needs to be further verified.