[Application of genetic diagnosis for colorectal cancer]

Recently, PCR techniques have been introduced for genetic diagnosis of colorectal cancer. The clinical significance of the genetic diagnosis of cancers includes preclinical diagnosis of hereditary cancers and viral tumors, prediction of malignancy and chemosensitivity focusing on expression profiling of related genes, and detection of micrometastasis in lymph node or bone marrow as well as of circulating tumor cells in peripheral blood targeting tumor-specific mRNA expression such as cytokeratin 19, 20 and CEA. In this report, molecular biological techniques for genetic diagnosis of colorectal cancer are discussed.