The patients either had no lymph nodes that were known to be positive, or had only micrometastasis to lymph nodes. |
The majority of patients, 13, had just one micrometastasis, but 4 patients had two, and 2 patients had four. |
Immunohistochemistry showed evidence of micrometastasis in 3 of the 848 lymph nodes examined. |
Detection of micrometastasis by cytokeratin 20 RT-PCR is limited due to stable backgro nd transcription in gran locytes. |