Moreover we demonstrated that apoM mRNA levels were much higher in the patients with Dukes' stages 3 and 4 than the Dukes' stages 1 and 2, which indicates that apoM mRNA levels in cancer tissues may have a potential positive correlation to the tumor progress, although apoM protein mass were not parallel increased in the patients with lymph node metastasis. The gene discussed is APOM; the disease is metastatic malignant neoplasm in the lymph nodes.