Intraoperative diagnosis of lymph node metastasis by transcription–reverse transcription concerted reaction assay in gastric cancer

Background Increasing evidence has been accumulated to substantiate the clinical usefulness of quantitative evaluation of gene expression. This study was undertaken to assess diagnosis of metastasis in dissected lymph nodes through quantitative evaluation of the expression of carcinoembryonic antigen mRNA (CEA mRNA) by a rapid, simple transcription–reverse transcription concerted reaction (TRC) assay using dissected lymph node washings.