Vav3 is associated with tumor growth, apoptosis, invasion, metastasis and angiogenesis. In this study, we detected the expression of Vav3 in gastric cancer tissues, and explored its role in invasion, metastasis and prognosis of gastric cancer. Vav3, MMP-2, MMP-9, TIMP-1 and TIMP-2 in primary lesion and pericarcinous tissues were tested with Immunohistochemistry and Western blot. Results showed a higher expression of Vav3 in primary lesion than in pericarcinous tissue, and the expression of Vav3 was significantly correlated with MMP-2, MMP-9 and TIMP-1 in gastric cancer tissues. Overexpression of Vav3 was associated with poorer differentiation, advanced clinical stage, more significant infiltration depth, lymphatic metastasis, and perineural invasion. Results of Kaplan-Meier verified that overexpression of Vav3 was related to poorer prognosis and shorter survival time. Moreover, Cox proportional hazard model revealed that overexpression of Vav3 was an independent risk factor of prognosis for patients with gastric cancer. In all, we conclude that overexpression of Vav3 is an independent risk factor for prognosis of gastric cancer, and can be used as a prognostic indicator. This may be because that Vav3 could regulate genes which associated with the invasion and metastasis. (C) 2017 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.