Abstract: Objective To investigate the expression of survivin variants and their relationship to each other as well as to clinic pathological factors in colorectal cancer. Methods survivin variant specific RT-PCR was developed to analysis their expression in 67 paired cancer and para-cancer tissues, and the expression of the wildtype survivin at the protein level was further verified by immunohistochemistry. Results All the cases tested expressed survivin mRNA，and immunohistochemistry obtained similar finding. The nonantiapoptostic survivin-2B was dominantly expressed in para-cancer tissues, whereas the antiapoptostic survivin-ΔEX3 was more frequently detected in cancer tissues. The expression of survivin-ΔEX3 mRNA was significantly associated with tumor metastasis. Conclusion The balance between antiapoptostic survivin iso-forms and nonantiapoptostic ones may play an important role in tumor genesis and tumor progression.