We have sought to establish a reliable and reproducible method to examine this pattern and its possible tumour and/or progression specificity, since co-expression of exons proven by immunohistochanistry does not determine whether they are on the same molecule (and two or more CD44 may be present in the same cell at the same time) We have used a PCR based method using five primer pairs to create a simple representation of this highly complex CD44 expression pattern. The gene discussed is CD44; the disease is neoplasm.