Objective：To investigate the correlation between 18F-FDG PET/CT metabolic parameters and pathological factors or clinical stages of primary esophageal lesions. Methods：18F-FDG PET/CT image datasets of 82 patients who underwent 18F-FDG PET/CT scan before radical resection surgery were analyzed. Maximum standardized uptake value（SUVmax），metabolic tumor volume（MTV），and total lesion glycolysis（TLG）of primary esophageal lesions were measured. The correlations of the metabolic parameters with the clinical stages and pathological factors were analyzed，and the diagnostic values of the metabolic parameters were evaluated by receiver operating characteristic（ROC）curve. Results：Primary tumors of 82 patients with esophageal cancers were characterized by high 18F-FDG uptake. There were no significant differences between metabolic parameters（SUVmax，MTV，TLG）and gender or age or tumor sites（all P＞0.05）. The statistically significant differences were observed between MTV or TLG and different pathologic stage（T stage，N stage or TNM stage）（all P＜0.05）. SUVmax was associated with T staging（P < 0.05），but not with pathological grading，N staging or TNM（P > 0.05）. T staging was positively correlated with SUVmax，MTV and TLG，respectively（P < 0.05）. And N staging was positively correlated with MTV and TLG，respectively（P < 0.05）. TNM stages were positively correlated with SUVmax，MTV and TLG（all P < 0.05）. The ROC curve of 18F-FDG PET/CT metabolism parameters for predicting lymph node metastasis showed that MTV and TLG had predictive value for lymph node metastasis. When the cutoff values were 28.35 cm3 and 89.87 respectively，the diagnostic efficiency was the highest，the sensitivities were 60.0% and 70.0%，and the specificities were 71.7% and 67.1%，respectively. Conclusion：The metabolic parameters of 18F-FDG PET/CT，especially TLG and MTV，have a good correlation with the clinico-pathological factors of esophageal cancers. TLG and MTV have certain reference value for lymph node metastasis.