In addition to pharmacogenetic markers for outcome following specific drug treatment, there are a variety of patient characteristics (e.g. lymph node metastases, age), histologic findings (e.g. neurovascular invasion, differentiation), and genetic factors (e.g. p53 expression, microsatellite instability), which appear to influence patient prognosis in colorectal cancer. The gene discussed is TP53; the disease is colorectal cancer.