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Gastric cancer is one of the most common malignant tumors of the gastrointestinal tract. However, the molecular pathways involved in the regulation of gastric carcinogenesis are not completely elucidated. In the last decade, basic cancer research has been focused on the deregulation of apoptosis as a central event in the process of carcinogenesis. Caspase-3 and survivin are regulators of apoptosis and have been implicated in the development of gastric cancer. The aim of the present study was to compare the expression of mRNA and protein for survivin and caspase-3 in the gastric cancer and in the cancer margin with that in normal human gastric mucosa. Fifteen patients with advanced gastric cancer (all H. pylori-positive) and 15 matched control subjects with normal gastric mucosa were included in this study. The biospy specimens for histology and for molecular analyses were taken from gastric tumor, tumor surrounding gastric mucosa and in normal patients from the mucosa of antrum and corpus. Survivin mRNA expression was very weak, but detectable, in the normal gastric mucosa. However, at the protein level, no expression for survivin was detected in the normal gastric mucosa. In the biopsy specimens from tumor and surrounding gastric mucosa, a significant increase in survivin mRNA and protein expression was observed. The expression of survivin was higher in the tumor than in the tumor margin. The mRNA and protein expression of caspase-3 was detected in the gastric mucosa of normal subjects. In gastric cancer only the expression of procaspase-3 was observed, while the expression of active caspase-3 was completely undetectable. In the gastric mucosa surrounding gastric cancer, no gene and protein expression for caspase-3 was detected. We conclude that the changes in the level of caspase-3 and survivin play an important role in the transformation from normal gastric mucosa to gastric career.