[Occurrence of numerical aberrations of chromosomes in metachronous liver metastases of colorectal cancers].

To investigate the change of numerical aberrations of chromosome 17 or 18 during progression of Colorectal carcinoma, we applied FISH, using chromosome specific probes, to 3 colorectal primary carcinomas and a total of 4 metachronous metastatic lesions in the liver. We also investigated the relationship between the DNA content of whole nucleus and the number of chromosome 17 by multiparametric analysis using autostage cytofluorometry. When compared with the results for primary lesions, in 4 metastatic lesions, the population of tetrasomy 17 cells increased in 2 lesions, and that of monosomy 18 cells increased in 1 lesion. The nuclear DNA contents histograms for disomy 17 and aneusomy 17 cells analyzed individually for 3 primary and 4 metastatic lesions, showed almost no appreciable difference of peak DNA values. These results indicate that the numerical aberrations of chromosome 17 and 18 accumulate during the progression of colorectal carcinomas, and that the subpopulation of aneusomy 17 consist mainly of those cells that involve the numerical aberrations in a few chromosomes.