The discovery of the Philadelphia chromosome by Nowell and Hungerford in 1960 greatly stimulated interest in cancer cytogenetics. Once banding techniques were refined in the 1970s, the field of cancer cytogenetics blossomed and benefited tremendously from the wealth of information that was quickly amassed. Today, the field is still growing rapidly with the advent of molecular cytogenetic techniques, such as fluorescent in situ hybridisation (FISH), multicolour FISH, spectral karyotyping, and comparative genomic hybridisation. However, there are fewer cancer cytogenetics laboratories than clinical cytogenetics laboratories because of the lower demand for this service. This is changing rapidly, as new prognostic associations are constantly being discovered. …