Colorectal cancer(CRC)is one of the most common malignancies worldwide.The incidence of CRC in the Chinese population has increased dramatically during the last two decades; however,nonrandom chromosomal alterations in Chinese patients have not been described.In the present study, comparative genomic hybridization(CGH)was applied to detect recurrent chromosome alterations in 26 primary colorectal carcinomas and 21 colorectal adenomas from Chinese patients.In CRC,several recurrent chromosomal changes were found,including gains of 8q (14/26 cases, 54%), 20q (54%), 3q (50%), 13q( 50%), 5p (46%), 7p (42%), 7q (42%), and 12p (38%) and losses of 18q (65%) and 17p (42%). From comparison with previous CGH studies,the frequent gains of 3q and 12p might be distinctive occurrences in Chinese patients.The distribution of frequently found chromosomal alterations in different locations was studied.The gain of 20q was more frequently found in colon cancer (P<0.01) and the gain of 12p was more frequently found in rectal cancer.Chromosomal alterations were found in 19/21 of adenomas; the most frequent chromosomal alteration was the loss of 18q (9/21 cases, 43%). These recurrent alterations provide several starting points for the isolation of candidate oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes.