Abstract: Purposes The expression characteristics of heat shock proteins (HSPs) in salivary tumor were studied to find their effect and relationship on the occurrence and development of salivary tumor. Methods With immunohistochemistry techniques S-P，Immunofluorescence Double Staining Technique and Confocal Laser Scanning Microscope（CLSM），expression of HSPs was detected in 41 cases of benign tumors and 17 malignant tumors. The data were analyzed with stata7.0 chi square test and spearman correlation analysis. Results 1 All 5 HSPs were significantly expressed both in benign and malignant tumors. The expression rate of HSP84（β） and HSP86（α）was higher in benign mixed tumor（BMT）than in adenoma or adenolymphoma（p＜0.01）. 2 In malignant tumors，the expression of HSP27 was significantly lower（r＝-0.3506, p＜0.01），negatively related to malignant, while the expression of HSP70 or HSP86（90α）increased a little especially the double expression ratio of HSP70/HSP86（90α）reached 100%. Conclusions 1 All HSPs might be involved in tumorigenesis，but the types and expression rate were a little different. 2 The lower- expression of HSP27 might be the biomarker of differentiation depression in salivary tumor. 3 HSP70 and HSP90，especially HSP86（90α） may promote occurrence and development of malignant tumors through the persistence- activation of tumorigenesis client proteins. Hsp90，especially HSP86（90α），may be a target of salivary oncotherapy..

Key words: salivary tumor, Heat shock proteins(HSPs), Immunofluorescence Double Staining Technique, Confocal Laser Scanning Microscope