Patent ID: 7049059

Claim:
A method for determining a chemotherapeutic regimen comprising 5-Fluorouracil, oxaliplatin, or combination thereof for treating a tumor in a patient comprising: (a) obtaining a tissue sample of the tumor and fixing the sample, to obtain a fixed tumor sample; (b) isolating mRNA from the fixed tumor sample; (c) subjecting the mRNA to amplification using a pair of oligonucleotide primers capable of amplifying a region of the Thymidylate Synthase (TS) gene having SEQ ID NO: 11, to obtain an amplified sample, wherein the oligonucleotide primers consist of the oligonucleotide primer pair SEQ ID NO: 3 and SEQ ID No: 4; (d) determining the amount of TS mRNA in the amplified sample; (e) comparing the amount of TS mRNA from step (d) to an amount of mRNA of an internal control gene to determine the difference between the amplified sample and internal control gene; and (g) determining a chemotherapeutic regime comprising 5-flurouracil, oxaliplatin, or combination thereof based on the amount of TS mRNA in the amplified sample and the threshold level for TS gene expression.