In this work we first present a unified framework for the analysis of miscible and immiscible viscous fingering. To establish this we introduce the Korteweg stresses for miscible fluids which arise due to concentration gradients and are analogous to surface tension between two immiscible fluids. For the immiscible fingering we use the continuum representation of surface tension which treats surface tension as a body force. This analogy between the two types of fingering helps us obtain a better insight into the role of Korteweg stresses in miscible fluids and enables in resolving ambiguities in the role of these stresses in a dynamic system. Finally we examine the effect of Korteweg stresses to see how they can be a stabilizing influence for miscible viscous fingering of finite slices in a chromatography column and discuss if this can give an extra control option to improve the performance of the separation. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.