The correlation between vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)‐C gene expression and in vitro invasive activity and matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)‐2 or 9 gene expression and proteolytic activity in 11 cervical carcinoma cell lines, was investigated. Immunohistochemical expression of VEGF‐C in 52 cervical carcinoma tissues was also correlated with tumor aggressiveness with respect to clinicopathologic features, tumor vascularity, MMP‐2 expression and patient outcome. Expression of VEGF‐C mRNA differed remarkably among the cell lines and there was a statistical correlation between VEGF‐C gene expression and the number of invaded tumor cells (p = 0.0009) and MMP‐2 gene expression and activity (p < 0.05). Anti‐VEGF‐C antibody inhibited the invasive and proteolytic activity of tumor cells in a concentration‐dependent manner. VEGF‐C or MMP‐2 expression in clinical tissue samples was well correlated with depth of myometrial invasion, endometrial invasion, pelvic lymphnode metastasis and tumor vascularity (p < 0.05) and there was a close relation between VEGF‐C and MMP‐2 expression (p < 0.0001) in cervical carcinomas. Overall survival rates for 14 patients with strong VEGF‐C staining tumors were lower than those for 38 patients with weak VEGF‐C staining tumors (p = 0.0132) and VEGF‐C tissue status emerged as an independent prognostic parameter (p = 0.0232). These results suggest that VEGF‐C expression is closely related to invasion phenotype and affects the patient's survival in cervical carcinomas. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.