Patent ID: 8048631

Claim:
A method of diagnosing cancer comprising: amplifying repetitive units in a repetitive region of a human target nucleic acid comprising: a) contacting a target nucleic acid comprising substantially complementary first and second strands with a first and a second primer, wherein said first primer hybridizes to at least one repetitive unit of said first strand and said second primer hybridizes to at least one repetitive unit of said second strand, wherein said hybridized primers are capable of primer extension when hybridized to their respective strands, and wherein at least one nucleotide of said first primer produces an internal base pair mismatch between said first primer and a nucleotide of said repetitive unit when said first primer is hybridized to at least one repetitive unit of said first strand, wherein said first primer also produces a mismatch with the 3′ terminal nucleotide of said second primer when first and second primers hybridize to each other, wherein at least one nucleotide of said second primer produces an internal base pair mismatch between said second primer and a nucleotide of said repetitive unit when said second primer is hybridized to at least one repetitive unit of said second strand, wherein said second primer also produces a mismatch with the 3′ terminal nucleotide of said first primer when first and second primers hybridize to each other; b) amplifying the target nucleic acid by the polymerase chain reaction; c) determining the number of repetitive units present in the target nucleic acid and comparing the number of repetitive units to a control; wherein a change in the number of repeats indicates the presence of cancer.