Figure 1

Correlations between the mean level of fecal CK19 mRNA and the distant metastatic rate for CRC patients. Each mean level of fecal CK19 mRNA was calculated from patients (black square) or healthy controls (gray square) in the same age interval as indicated. A metastatic rate (black triangle) was calculated by the following formula: number of patient with M1 stage/total number of patient in the same age interal ×100. Ages ranges of these subjects were 32--90 years for CRC patients and 32--91 years for healthy controls.