Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) or MSC-like cells have now been isolated from various sites, including different types of tumor tissues. Whether MSCs or MSC-like cells in different tumor tissues possess differentiated biological characteristics remains unclear, and the correlation between MSCs or MSC-like cells and tumors has been a controversial topic. In the present study, we isolated MSC-like cells from human esophageal carcinoma (hEC-MSCs) and adjacent non-cancerous tissues (hECN-MSCs). Although the two types of MSC-like cells were in different microenvironments and had certain differences, they possessed similar morphological properties and surface antigens, including CD13, CD29, CD44 and CD105. Our results indicated that hEC-MSCs and hECN-MSCs are similar in a number of ways. This may have implications for further research on the esophageal carcinoma microenvironment and its pathological mechanism.