[Truncated abstract] Clinical and pathological predictors of survival for stage II and III colon cancer patients treated with or without chemotherapy: a population-based study. Aim: Using a population-based cohort of colorectal cancer (CRC), the major aims of this study were to: 1. Identify clinico-pathological markers that can be used to define a subset of stage II colon cancer patients with excellent prognosis and who therefore do not require referral for adjuvant chemotherapy; 2. Investigate whether there is a survival benefit from the use of adjuvant chemotherapy in a population-based cohort of stage II colon cancer; 3. Investigate stage III colon cancer patients for evidence of predictive markers for response to 5FU chemotherapy; 4. Investigate CRC for age-related differences in clinico-pathological and molecular features. Hypotheses to be tested: 1. A subset of good prognosis stage II colon cancers can be defined using routine pathological markers; 2. Females colon cancer patients gain more survival advantage from 5FU chemotherapy than males; 3. Tumours from young CRC patients have different molecular characteristics to those from older patients; 4. The underlying molecular characteristics of tumour can impact upon the response to 5FU chemotherapy. Methods: The study cohort consisted of 5,971 cases diagnosed between 1993 and 2003 representing over 90% of the CRCs diagnosed in the state of Western Australia. Results: The major findings of this translational research into colon cancer can be summarized as follows: The morphological features of serosal and vascular invasion allow for prognostic stratification of stage II colon cancer into