Abstract: Objective: To screen the preoperative nutrition risks of patients with esophageal cancer (EC) ,and discuss the correlation between the nutrition risk(NR) and clinical features. Methods: The preoperative NR and correlation between NR and clinical features of 80 cases with EC were analyzed using the Nutritional Risk Screening 2002 (NRS 2002) . Malnutrition was determined according to the body mass index of Chinese standard (lowered than 18. 5 kg /m2 ) and clinical data,which was recorded as 3 points. Results: Of the 80 EC patients who were evaluated by NRS 2002,64 patients (80. 0%) were judged at malnutrition risk,among these 64 patients, according to the age of EC patients,65. 6% were 60 years old and 34. 4% were ＜ 60 years old. The incidence of the malnutrition risk in patients with early,middle and late stage were 1. 6%,78. 1% and 20. 3%,respectively,and difference of three stages was statistical significant(P ＜ 0. 05 or P ＜ 0. 01) . The incidence of malnutrition risk was not correlated with the sex,lesion location, pathological type and degree of histology(P ＞ 0. 05) . Conclusions: The incidence of malnutrition risk of patients with EC is high,NRS 2002 can help to find the NR of patients with EC,which has relations with the age and pathological stage of EC.