AIM: Fourteen urinary nucleosides, primary degradation products of tRNA, were evaluated to know the potential as biological markers for patients with colorectal cancer.METHODS: The concentrations of 14 kinds of urinary nucleosides from 52 patients with colorectal cancer, 10patients with intestinal villous adenoma and 60 healthy adults were determined by column switching high performance liquid chromatography method.RESULTS: The mean levels of 12 kinds of urinary nucleosides (except uridine and guanosine) in the patients with colorectal cancer were significantly higher than those in patients with intestinal villous adenoma or the healthy adults. Using the levels of 14 kinds of urinary nucleosides as the data vectors for principal component analysis, 71% (37/52) patients with colorectal cancer were correctly classified from healthy adults, in which the identification rate was much higher than that of CEA method (29%).Only 10% (1/10) of patients with intestinal villous adenoma were indistinguishable from patients with colorectal cancer. The levels of m1G, Pseu and m1A were positively related with tumor size and Dukes stages of colorectal cancer. When monitoring the changes in urinary nucleoside concentrations of patients with colorectal cancer associated with surgery, it was found that the overall correlations with clinical assessment were 84% (27/32)and 91% (10/11) in response group and progressive group, respectively.CONCLUSION: These findings indicate that urinary nucleosides determined by column switching high performance liquid chromatography method may be useful as biological markers for colorectal cancer.