Abstract: bjective To investigate the expression profiles of a disintegrin and metalloproteinases（ADAMs）family menbers ADAM-8，ADAM-9，ADAM-10，ADAM-12，ADAM-15，ADAM-17， ADAM-19，ADAM-28，ADAM-33 in colorectal carcinoma and to determine the clinical significance of ADAM-28 in colorectal carcinoma. Methods QPCR was used to detect the relative levels of ADAMs mRNA in colorectal carcinoma and matched non-cancerous tissues，and Western blotting was used to detected ADAM-28 protein expression. Immunohistochemistry was taken to analyze the expression of ADAM-28 in 218 colorectal carcinoma samples and its correlation with clinicopathological variables was then analyzed. Results The mRNAs expression of ADAM-8, ADAM-9, ADAM-17, ADAM-28 and ADAM-33 were up-regulated in colorectal carcinoma, ADAM-12 mRNA was down-regulated, and while the mRNAs of ADAM-10, ADAM-15 and ADAM-19 had no obvious changes. ADAM-28 protein was up-regulated in colorectal carcinoma. Immunohistochemistry showed that the positive rate of ADAM-28 in colorectal carcinoma tissues was 68.8%（150/218）. The expression of ADAM-28 significantly correlated with regional lymph node metastasis, differentiation and TNM stage（P＜0.05）. Survival analysis revealed that patients with positive ADAM-28 expression had a shorter median overall survival than those of ADAM-28 negative expression（36.75 months vs.95.10 months, P＜0.001）. Cox multi-factors analysis showed that ADAM-28 was an independent factor influencing overall survival（P＜0.05）. Conclusion ADAM-28 contributes to the occurrence and development of colorectal carcinoma；ADAM-28 may be served as a potential biomarker in predicting patients' outcome.