Objective To investigate the clinical pathologic significance of lymphangiogenesis in in colorectal cancer. Methods New lymphatic-specific markers D2-40 was used immunohistochemically to detect the lymphatic vessel density(LVD) in the intratumoural and peritumoral areas, and in normal tissue from 96 cases of colorectal cancer, which were analyzed with clinical pathologic parameters of those colorectal cancer. Results Significandy higher LVD was found in the intratumoural area(14.5±2.4), when compared with normal(5.9±1.1)and peritumoural areas(6.7±1.2) (P<0.01). LVD of the peritumoural area was higher than normal area (P< 0.01). However, peritumoural LVD was associated with both depth of invasion and liver metastasis (r=0.71,0.78 P<0.05), but not associated with tumour size, macroscopic type and lymph-node metastasis (P>0.05). Intratu-moural LVD was not correlated with tumour size, macroscopic type, the depth of invasion,lymph-node metastasis, and liver metastasis(P>0.05). Conclusion Lymphangiogenesis in the peritumoural area may be helpful in evalution of liver metastasis and prognosis.