GENOMIC INSTABILITY IN COLORECTAL CANCERS IN TURKEY

Microsatellite instability in a subset of colorectal cancers from Nort h America, Europe and Japan has been reported. We examined 88 colorect al cancers from Turkish patients. Five different microsatellite loci ( I mono- and 4 dinucleotide repeat regions) were tested. Eight tumors d isplayed replication errors (RERs) with at least 2 different markers. Right-sided tumors showed significantly higher frequency of microsatel lite instability compared with left-sided tumors. The frequency of RER phenotype was slightly higher in tumors occurring in younger (<50 yea rs old) than in older patients (13% vs. 8%), and there was no associat ion between sex and genomic instability. The frequency of genomic inst ability in our study group was 9%, whereas the reported frequencies in tumors from other countries varied between 12% and 16%. (C) 1996 Wile y-Liss, Inc.