Introduction
A number of known cancer genes map to the long arm of chromosome 17, among which ERBB2, BRCA1 and NME1 have been shown to be the most frequently involved in breast cancer. Recent reports have suggested the existence of at least four regions of allelic imbalance (AI) along 17q, one at 17q21, two in the 17q22-q24 region and one at 17q25. However, the nature of the anomalies involving these regions remains uncertain.