In order to investigate the correlation between protein expression of PTEN and the proliferation, infiltration, metastasis and prognosis in pancreatic cancer, immunohistochemical SP method was used to examine the protein expression of PTEN, PCNA, MVD, MMP-2, MMP-9 and TUNEL method to detect the levels of apoptosis of pancreatic cells in 41 pancreatic head cancers from regional pancreatectomy (RP) and 10 normal pancreatic tissues. The results showed that among 41 cases of pancreatic cancers, the positive staining of PTNE (39.02%) was significantly weaker than that in normal pancreatic tissues (P < 0.05). The levels of PCNA labeling index (LI), apoptotic index (AI), microvessel density (MVD), MMP-2 LI and MMP-9 LI were decreased gradually with the increase of the expression intensity of PTEN, and there was a significant difference in the above parameters among the patients having different expression levels of PTEN (P < 0.01 or P < 0.05). There was a negative correlation between the expression of PTEN and PCNA LI, MVD, MMP-2 LI, MMP-9 LI, and a positive correlation between AI and the expression of PTEN. The expression intensity of PTEN was correlated with the postoperative survival of the patients with pancreatic cancer (chi2 = 22.3400, P < 0.0001, RR = 2.030). It was suggested that the expression levels of PTEN protein were closely related with proliferation, infiltration and metastasis in human pancreatic cancer, and the expression of PTEN protein was one of the prognostic factors for pancreatic cancer following RP.